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Varnhagen 

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JbLllen  Ivey 


\ 


THE  LIBRARY 
OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

IN  MEMORY  OF 
EDWIN  CORLE 

PRESENTED  BY 
JEAN  CORLE 


The  Century  of  the  Child 
The  Education  of  the  Child 
Love  and  Marriage 
The  Woman  Movement 
Rahel  Varnhagen 


RAHEL    VARNHAGEN    IN    1817. 
FROM  AN   ENGRAVING   IN   THE   LIBRARY  OF   UPSALA  UNIVERSITY. 


Rahel  Varnhagen 

A  Portrait 

By  Ellen  Key 


Translated  from  the  Swedish  by 

Arthur  G.  Chater 


With  an  Introduction  by  Havelock  Ellis 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  and  London 

Cbe    fmicherbocfter    press 

1913 


COPYRIGHT.  1913 

BY 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


TTb«  ftnicfccrbocfter  PKM,  Itaw  Keck 


2035283 


"  Still  und  bewegt." 

(Holderlin:  Hyperion.) 

Du  schweigst  und  duldest,  und  sie  verstehn  dich  nicht, 
Du  heilig  LebenI  welkest  hinweg  und  schweigst, 
Derm  ach!  vergebens  bei  Barbaren 
Suchst  du  die  Deinen  im  Sonnenlichte, 

Die  zartlichgrossen  Sealen,  die  nimmer  sind! 

Doch  eilt  die  Zeit.     Noch  siehet  mein  sterblich  Lied 
Den  Tag,  der,  Diotima!  nachst  den 
Gottern  mit  Helden  dich  nennt  und  dir  gleicht. 

(Holderlin:  Diotima.) 


PREFACE 

THE  following  pages  are  not  a  study  in  literary 
history;  no  search  has  been  made  for  new  au- 
thorities, and  no  stress  is  laid  on  literal  accuracy 
in  the  case  of  the  sources  that  have  been  used. 
Such  a  work  was  within  neither  the  aim  nor  the 
compass  of  this  book. 

My  aim  has  been  to  give  a  portrait  of  the  great- 
est woman  the  Jewish  race  has  produced;  to  my 
mind  also  the  greatest  woman  Germany  can  call 
her  daughter. 

In  spite  of  the  number  of  works  on  Rahel  the 
task  is  not  superfluous.  Among  even  cultured 
Germans,  men  and  women,  to  whom  I  have  spoken 
of  Rahel,  five  out  of  ten  knew  nothing  of  her,  four 
had  heard  something  about  her,  and  one  had  real 
knowledge  of  her ! 

My  own  impression  is  not  a  new  one.  I  was 
a  child  when  my  attention  was  first  caught  by 
a  few  words  about  her;  when  quite  young,  I  read 


Vlll 


Preface 


two  essays  on  her  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes, 
by  Blaze-Bury  and  by  Karl  Hillebrand.  Later  on, 
I  lived  in  Rahel,  ein  Buck  des  Andenkens,  and  as 
long  ago  as  1885  I  wrote  in  the  Revue  my  first 
essay  on  her,  which  I  called  "Rahel,  a  Person- 
ality." Some  parts  of  that  little  essay  are  in- 
cluded in  this  book,  and  there  is  not  one  of  the 
views  of  Rahel  which  I  then  held  that  is  not  re- 
produced here,  though  in  a  more  developed  form. 

I  have  concentrated  my  delineation  exclusively 
around  Rahel' s  own  person.  Those  who  desire 
a  more  detailed  picture  of  Rahel's  age  and  con- 
temporaries may  be  referred  to  O.  Berdrow's 
great,  conscientious,  and  sympathetic  work,  Rahel 
und  ihre  Zeit.  Furthermore,  I  have  based  my 
portrait  of  Rahel  as  far  as  possible  on  her  own 
words.  These  are  here  quoted  either  directly  or 
indirectly,  or  sometimes  merely  reproduced  in 
their  leading  ideas.  Only  by  such  treatment  was 
the  concentration  possible  which  was  imposed  by 
the  compass  of  the  present  work.  In  the  same 
way,  the  letters  are  not  always  quoted  in  chrono- 
logical order:  an  earlier  one  may  appear  later,  or 
vice  versa,  or  a  portion  of  a  letter  may  occur  in  one 
place  and  another  portion  in  a  different  one;  that  is, 
where  the  chronological  connection  was  unimport- 


Preface  ix 

ant  but  the  psychological  connection  had  to  be 
made  clear.  I  think  also  that  in  certain  cases 
Rahel's  train  of  thought  is  made  clearer  by  this 
free  method  of  reproduction,  and  that  here  and 
there  a  slightly  altered  punctuation  has  made  the 
direct  quotations  easier  to  understand.  These 
liberties,  forbidden  to  the  learned  historian  of 
literature,  are  as  permissible  in  tracing  a  portrait 
as  the  liberties  a  painter  takes  with  a  view  to 
bringing  out  the  essential  and  omitting  the  acci- 
dental in  the  model  of  whom  he  seeks  to  produce 
a  characteristic  picture. 

Whether  I  have  succeeded  in  producing  such  a 
picture,  opinions  will  of  course  be  divided.  My 
hope  of  having  to  some  extent  understood  what 
is  characteristic  in  Rahel's  personality  rests  ex- 
clusively on  the  love  she  has  inspired  in  me.  For 
a  profound  love  is  a  guide,  when  we  seek  to  pene- 
trate a  person's  being  or  work;  whether  this  per- 
son is  still  moving  with  us  along  what  we  call  the 
path  of  life  or  whether  she  influences  us  as  one  of 
those  dead  who  live  eternally.  Each  time  I  have 
returned  to  Rahel,  my  love  has  increased.  More 
and  more  clearly  have  I  perceived  the  truth  of 
Brandes's  judgment:  that  Rahel  "is  the  first 
great  and  modern  woman  in  German  culture"; 


x  Preface 

of  Hillebrand's:  that  Rahel  as  a  woman  and 
Goethe  as  a  man  are  in  the  same  degree  typical  of 
their  age.  But  side  by  side  with  this  perception 
of  Rahel's  objective  importance,  her  subjective 
value  has  become  to  me  greater  and  greater,  and 
there  is  in  the  literature  of  the  world  no  woman's 
book — except  the  poems  of  Elizabeth  Barrett 
Browning — that  I  should  be  more  sorry  to  do 
without  than  Rahel's  letters. 

With  this  confession  of  my  "lack  of  objectivity  " 
— and  therewith  of  my  conviction  that  this  defect 
is  the  real  merit  of  my  little  work — I  now  let  it  go 
out  into  the  world  in  the  hope  that  Rahel  will 
once  more  prove  her  power  as  a  "guide  of  the 
soul "  and  "  consoler  of  the  heart. " 

ELLEN  KEY. 


INTRODUCTION 

IT  is  more  than  seventy  years  since  Carlyle, 
shortly  after  her  death,  brought  Rahel  Varn- 
hagen  before  the  English-speaking  world.  Yet, 
even  to-day,  she  is  not  a  familiar  personality  to  us. 
Many  people  who  count  themselves  well  informed 
would  be  puzzled  to  say  who  she  was  and  what 
she  stands  for.  Even  among  those  who  are  seek- 
ing to  work  out  her  ideals  into  real  life,  one  sus- 
pects, not  a  few  feel  no  responding  thrill  of  blood 
when  they  hear  the  name  Rahel. 

Carlyle's  estimate,  indeed,  after  his  wont,  was  a 
little  grudging.  Rahel  Vamhagen  was  a  person- 
ality, not  a  writer.  As  she  herself  well  realised, 
she  was  constitutionally  incapable  of  attaining 
artistic  expression  with  a  pen.  Her  concentrated 
telegraphic  method  of  letter-writing,  filled  out 
with  notes  of  exclamation  and  notes  of  interroga- 
tion, the  "dashes  and  splashes,"  the  "whirls  and 
tortuosities, "  sorely  tried  Carlyle's  patience.  Yet 


xii  Introduction 

he  recognised  that  there  were  grains  of  gold  hid- 
den in  these  packed  inarticulate  thoughts  and 
emotions.  He  placed  Rahel  Vamhagen  even 
above  Madame  de  Stael.  She  has  ideas,  he 
remarks,  unequalled  in  De  Stael,  and  a  sincerity, 
a  pure  tenderness,  a  genuineness,  which  that 
celebrated  woman,  if  she  ever  possessed,  had  early 
lost. 

Carlyle,  naturally  and  almost  inevitably,  ap- 
proached Rahel  Varnhagen  mainly  from  the 
literary  side.  Some  forty  years  later,  her  person- 
ality had  begun  to  become  clearer,  and  then,  once 
more,  another  English  writer,  this  time  a  woman, 
approached  the  subject  more  rightly  as  a  matter 
for  biography.  Mrs.  Vaughan  Jennings's  RaJiel: 
Her  Life  and  Letters,  published  in  1876,  is  a  good 
book,  written  with  much  sympathy,  skill,  and 
care;  it  may  be  read  with  interest  to-day,  al- 
though it  is  not  a  complete  account  of  Rahel's  life. 
It  was  not  until  1900  that  Otto  Berdrow  published 
his  Rahel  Varnhagen,  ein  Lebens-  und  Zeitbild, 
which  may  fairly  be  regarded  as  the  final  bio- 
graphy. Berdrow  is  completely  equipped  with  all 
the  facts  bearing  on  Rahel,  many  of  them  the 
result  of  his  own  research,  but  his  biography,  for 
all  its  fulness,  is  no  heavy  and  pedantic  work  of 


Introduction  xiii 

mere  scholarship.  He  presents  a  living  picture 
of  his  heroine,  and  so  far  as  possible  seeks  to  make 
her  speak  to  us  in  her  own  words.  This  work, 
which  has  appeared  in  a  new  and  revised  edi- 
tion, is  still  unknown  to  English  readers,  who 
have,  for  the  most  part,  to  gain  their  knowledge 
of  Rahel  from  an  occasional  essay,  such  as  the 
quite  competent  chapter  which  Miss  Mary 
Hargrave  has  included  in  her  recent  book, 
Some  German  Women  and  their  Salons.  Rahel 
Varnhagen  has  not  proved  an  attractive  figure 
to  the  literary  adventurers  in  search  of  a 
subject. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  why  this  should  be. 
Rahel  was  not  a  brilliant  writer;  no  great  practi- 
cal achievement  can  be  credited  to  her;  there  was 
nothing  conspicuously  romantic  about  her  life. 
Her  nature  never  attained  full  expression.  Partly 
as  the  result  of  her  youthful  struggles,  partly,  it 
may  be,  by  natural  temperament,  her  energy  was 
permanently  held  back  from  effective  action. 
She  was  never  able  to  strike  out  boldly  and  freely 
into  life.  But  behind  the  veil  that  obscured  her 
the  soul  of  this  little  Jewess  was  an  ever-burning 
flame,  and  the  light  and  the  warmth  were  divined 
by  those  who  were  permitted  to  come  in  close 


xiv  Introduction 

contact  with  her,  "a  real  woman,"  as  Goethe 
said  of  her,  "with  the  strongest  feelings  I  have 
ever  seen  and  the  completest  mastery  of  them." 
Her  nature  might  never  become  vigorously  ar- 
ticulate in  action  or  even  in  speech,  but  in 
the  intensity  of  its  emotional  impulse  and  the 
clarity  of  its  intellectual  vision,  it  moved  freely 
and  audaciously,  without  regard  for  the  fash- 
ions of  the  world,  toward  a  goal  that  lay 
ahead. 

It  thus  comes  about  that,  however  Rahel  Varn- 
hagen  may  have  been  neglected,  she  really  has  a 
hidden  significance  which  only  awaits  the  un- 
veiling hands  of  those  who  possess  the  genius  and 
the  intimate  sympathy  to  reveal  it.  That  is  why 
this  book  of  Ellen  Key's  is  of  peculiar  value  and 
interest.  A  woman  who  is  herself  one  of  the  chief 
representatives  of  some  of  the  most  vital  move- 
ments of  the  day  here  brings  before  us,  in  clear 
and  vivid  outline,  the  woman  who,  nearly  a 
century  earlier,  was  the  inspired  pioneer  of 
those  movements.  For  Ellen  Key,  there  is  no 
woman's  book  in  the  literature  of  the  world, 
except  Mrs.  Browning's  poems,  that  it  would  be 
more  difficult  to  dispense  with  than  Rahel  Varn- 
hagen's  Letters.  It  may  be  that  not  a  few  of 


Introduction  xv 

the  readers  of  this  stimulating  book  of  Ellen 
Key's,  led  by  it  to  the  study  of  Rahel,  may 
come  to  feel  that  such  a  declaration  is  scarcely 
extravagant. 


WEST  DRAYTON, 
December,  1912. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

PREFACE    . 
I.    ORIGIN 
II.     PERSONALITY 

III.  LOVE 

IV.  RELIGION  . 

V.     FELLOW-FEELING 
VI.    SOCIAL  LIFE 
VII.     GOETHE     . 
VIII.    SENSE  OF  BEAUTY 
IX.    LETTERS    . 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 


rvn 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

RAHEL  VARXHAGEN  IN  1817  .          Frontispiece 

From  an  engraving  in  the  Library  of    Upsala 
University. 

FACING    PAGZ 

RAHEL  VARXHAGEN  IN  1796  ...        2 

From  the  bas-relief  by  Friedrich  Tieck. 
Photograph  by  Bruckmann. 


Rahel  Varnhagen 


CHAPTER  I 

ORIGIN 

Now  and  then  we  meet  in  life  or  in  letters  with 
a  person — sometimes  a  man,  but  more  often  a 
a  woman — who  occupies  no  exceptional  position, 
either  through  creative  genius,  or  artistic  ex- 
ecution, or  even  through  learning,  energy,  or 
beauty,  and  yet  this  being  exercises  so  decisive 
a  power  over  our  existence  that  our  life  comes 
under  an  indestructible  influence,  but  at  the  same 
time  one  from  which  our  own  liberation  proceeds. 

For  the  secret  of  the  power  of  these  rare  beings 
is  that  they  themselves  are  personalities  through 
and  through,  and  intensify  the  personality  in 
every  one  else.  Such  a  being  may  belong  to  a 
bygone  age  and  yet  fill  us  with  a  wonderful  sense 


2  Rahel  Varnhagen 

of  being  her  contemporary.  Since  nothing  in  her 
was  a  matter  of  custom  or  convention,  we  feel  not 
only  that  she  thought  but,  what  is  even  rarer, 
that  she  loved  and  suffered  as  we  people  of  the 
present  day,  but  more  deeply.  Everything  in 
her  is  so  primordial,  so  naturally  strong,  that  one 
imagines  one's  self  to  be  witnessing  the  play  of  the 
early  forces  of  the  race,  and  at  the  same  time  to  be 
confronted  by  a  revelation  of  the  ethical  depth, 
aesthetic  sensitiveness,  and  psychological  com- 
plexity to  which  the  development  of  humanity  may 
lead  as  its  final  result.  As  we  watch  the  thoughts 
and  feelings  of  such  a  glorious  being  rushing  forth 
in  a  Dionysiac  train,  but  intoxicated  only  with 
vital  force,  we  feel  ourselves  more  and  more 
liberated  from  semblance  and  fortuity.  We  learn 
to  believe  that  what  is  peculiar  to  each  is  in- 
dispensable to  all;  unhesitatingly,  indeed  without  a 
thought,  we  begin  to  be  ourselves  and,  under  the 
influence  of  this  great  personality's  passion  for 
truth,  we  do  not  understand  how  we  have  been 
able  to  wear  our  protective  disguise  or  how  we 
can  resume  the  mask  beneath  which  we  have  con- 
cealed our  real  features.  We  then  divine  what 
significance  this  being — who  has  produced  such 
emotion  in  us  simply  through  our  having  caught 


RAHEL   VARNHAGEN    IN    1796. 

FROM   THE  BAS-RELIEF  BY   FRIEDRICH   TIECK. 
PHOTOGRAPH   BY  BRUCKMANN. 


Origin  3 

fragments  of  her  nature  in  some  journal  or  letters — 
must  have  possessed  for  her  contemporaries.  We 
see  that  the  mere  fact  of  her  having  lived  was 
an  immense  contribution  to  civilisation,  a  never- 
ceasing  evolutionary  force. 

Such  a  personality,  the  concrete  realisation  of 
what  the  foremost  spirits  among  her  contempor- 
aries aimed  at  in  their  ideas — and  at  the  same  time 
the  forerunner  of  our  age,  since  she  prophetically 
taught  her  contemporaries  to  hope  for  the  truths 
we  now  live  on — was  Rahel. 

But  if  the  first  impression  of  Rahel  is  this  over- 
flowing wealth  of  life  and  primitive  force,  the  next 
is  that  in  this  life  also  tragedy  was  the  central 
point  of  the  Dionysia. 

The  root  of  her  being — like  the  Orchis  maculata — 
shows  a  light  and  a  dark  hand,  tightly  clasped  in 
each  other. 

Rahel  herself  for  a  long  time  regarded  her  Jew- 
ish descent  as  the  dark  side  of  her  destiny.  And 
she  was  right  in  the  sense  that  her  descent  from  a 
people  that  had  suffered  and  been  humiliated 
for  thousands  of  years  determined  her  own  char- 
acter and  through  it  her  experiences. 

Outwardly,  on  the  other  hand,  Rahel's  child- 
hood and  youth  coincide  with  the  period  of  the 


4  Rahel  Varnhagen 

Jewish  revival,  especially  in  Berlin ;  a  period  dur- 
ing which  the  Jews  emerged  from  their  segre- 
gated and  despised  position  with  a  rapidity  that 
is  more  often  rendered  possible  by  the  influence 
of  the  spirit  of  the  age  than  by  legislation. 

Frederick  the  Great  did  not  do  much  to  alter  the 
legal  position  of  the  Jews.  But  the  freedom  from 
prejudice,  which  was  diffused  around  him  in  ever 
wider  circles,  was  also  to  the  advantage  of  the 
Jews.  And  to  this  indirect  influence  was  added 
a  direct  one,  through  Moses  Mendelssohn,  the 
liberator  of  the  Jews  from  their  own  prejudices, 
their  awakener  to  a  perception  of  their  own 
powers.  Hitherto  the  Jews,  in  Mendelssohn's 
words,  had  only  shown  their  strength  "in  prayer 
and  suffering,  but  not  in  action."  He  conjured 
up  in  them  the  desire  of  freedom  and  the  in- 
stinct of  development.  Himself  a  deist  in  the 
spirit  of  the  age  of  enlightenment,  he  never- 
theless remained  in  the  Jewish  congregation  in 
order  to  be  able  to  combat  from  within  such  pre- 
judices as  gave  rise,  for  example,  to  a  Jewish  boy — 
a  few  years  before  Mendelssohn's  first  book  was 
published — being  expelled  from  the  Mosaic  con- 
gregation for  having  carried,  on  behalf  of  another 


Origin  5 

person,  a  German  book  from  one  street  to  another ! 
Mendelssohn  ventured  to  write  in  German  and 
to  translate  the  Old  Testament ;  he  caused  a  school 
to  be  opened,  in  which  the  Jewish  youth  learned 
the  German  language — until  that  time  the  Jews 
spoke  a  jargon  that  was  neither  German  nor 
Hebrew — and  participated  in  the  wealth  of  Ger- 
man culture.  Thus  was  spun  the  first  and 
strongest  thread  of  the  bond  that  thenceforward 
year  by  year  united  the  Jews  more  and  more 
firmly  to  the  German  people. 

The  self-esteem  with  which  the  Prussian  nation 
as  a  whole  was  filled  under  Frederick  II.,  caused 
that  of  the  Jews  also  to  increase.  These  same 
Jews,  who  were  still  subject  to  exceptional  laws, 
one  of  which — renewed  as  late  as  1802 — placed 
them  in  one  respect  in  the  same  category  as  thieves 
and  murderers;  these  same  Jews,  of  whom  a 
Moses  Mendelssohn  still  knew  what  it  was  to 
have  stones  thrown  at  himself  and  his  children 
during  their  walks  outside  the  Jewish  quarter, 
these  same  Jews  now  became  not  only  great  lead- 
ers of  financial  enterprise  and  generous  philan- 
thropists, but  leaders  of  society  as  well.  During 
the  last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century  it  was 
not  only  the  masculine  half  of  the  fashionable 


6  Rahel  Varnhagen 

world  of  Berlin  that  mixed  with  the  foremost  Jew- 
ish families,  but  that  fashionable  world  itself  that 
eagerly  sought  admission  to  the  homes  of  those 
families. 

No  doubt  princes,  noblemen,  and  diplomats  had 
often  come  in  contact  with  the  Jewish  bankers — 
in  connection  with  loans.  But  when,  after  this, 
bankers  threw  open  their  drawing-rooms  to  the 
young  members  of  the  aristocracy,  they  found 
there  so  much  attraction  that  it  soon  became  a 
valued  favour,  and  then  good  tone  to  mix  in  these 
Jewish  circles. 

The  young  men,  more  or  less  penetrated  by  the 
ideas  of  the  time,  found  in  Jewish  houses  a  more 
intelligent,  unprejudiced,  and  easy  social  tone  than 
was  permitted  by  the  women  of  their  own  families. 
The  young,  handsome,  cultured,  and  vivacious 
women  who  were  the  leaders  of  the  Jewish  salons 
invited,  for  instance,  actors  and  actresses,  who  as 
a  rule  were  still  excluded  from  "good  society," 
to  their  houses.  Good  music  was  performed,  fine 
works  of  art  decorated  the  rooms;  scholars,  poets, 
and  artists  were  not  only  present,  but  conversed 
with  more  freedom  than  elsewhere,  encouraged  by 
their  hostesses,  who  possessed  a  frankness,  a  men- 
tal alertness,  a  warmth,  that  were  usually  absent 


Origin  7 

in  the  German  ladies  of  the  time.  And  soon  the 
young  men  brought  with  them  a  sister  or  a  friend, 
who  was  anxious  to  share  the  social  privileges  about 
which  the  male  members  of  her  family  were  en- 
thusiastic. In  this  way  the  Jewish  salons  also 
acquired  an  indirect  influence  on  the  development 
of  social  life  in  wider  circles.  Thus  for  the  first 
time  the  Jewish  woman  fulfilled  a  civilising  mission 
in  modern  society. 

In  the  European  history  of  the  Jews  themselves 
more  than  one  woman  had  distinguished  herself 
before  this.1  But  the  Jewish  women's  great 
and  rapid  receptivity  for  another  civilisation, 
with  different  objects  from  those  of  the  purely 
Jewish  culture,  appears  first  in  the  time  of  the 
Jewish  salons  of  Berlin.  It  proved  that  the  new 
"seed  fell  on  an  altogether  new,  virgin  soil."3 
And  when  this  is  the  case — Russia  and  America 
afford  evidence  of  it  in  abundance — we  always  see 
a  setting-aside  of  time-honoured  forms,  a  break 

1  For  example,  Maria  Nunez,  who  in  conjunction  with  Jacob 
Tirado  founded  the  first  Spanish-Jewish  congregation  at  Amster- 
dam; Dona  Gracia  Mendoza,  who  gave  shelter  and  aid  to  all  the 
homeless  among  her  people,  in  addition  to  promoting  Jewish 
culture;  Berusia  as  a  thinker,  Rebecca  Tiktiner  as  a  writer,  and 
Sarah  Copia  Sullam  as  a  poet,  who  were  all  independent 
influences. 

a  Henriette  Here. 


8  Rahel  Varnhagen 

with  tradition,  even  in  the  useful  meaning  of 
the  word,  while  their  disadvantages  are  counter- 
balanced by  great  advantages. 

Among  the  Jewish  youth  there  appeared  both 
the  disadvantages  and  the  advantages  we  are 
speaking  of:  for  example,  great  zeal  for  cul- 
ture, mental  mobility,  and  sometimes  a  profound 
originality. 

The  Jewish  women  in  particular,  who  had  more 
time  and  leisure  than  the  men,  showed  in  their  in- 
tellectual interests  a  passion  and  a  capacity  for 
cultivation  which  did  not  always  imply  a  cor- 
responding individuality.  Such  an  individuality 
was  present  in  certain  of  these  Jewesses;  others 
again  appeared  original  only  through  qualities 
which  belonged  to  their  race.  They  were  all  sub- 
ject in  a  peculiar  way  to  the  Oriental  patriarchal 
despotism  that  still  obtains  to-day  in  many  a  Jew- 
ish home,  and  the  more  frequently  as  one  ap- 
proaches the  eastern  boundary  of  Europe.  On  the 
other  hand  they  received  impressions  from  the 
liberal  ideas  of  the  time  and  from  its  most  refined 
culture.  Young  Jewish  girls  had  access,  through 
their  married  friends,  to  books,  studies,  acquain- 
tances, which  perhaps  their  own  homes  did  not 
offer  them.  They  read  Voltaire,  Shakespeare, 


Origin  9 

and  Tasso  in  the  original;  they  revelled  in  con- 
temporary German  literature,  became  enthusiastic 
admirers  of  Goethe.  All  the  intellectual  hunger 
that  had  been  growing  for  generations  among 
their  people  could  now  at  last  be  satisfied.  They 
lived  in  a  time  that  took  its  colour  and  form  from 
great  minds  and  great  events,  and  their  essential 
development  was  now  determined  by  their  own 
time,  and  no  longer  by  the  traditions  of  a  thousand 
years.  The  strongest  and  most  elastic  among 
them — like  Dorothea  Mendelssohn — transform  the 
destiny  imposed  on  them  by  paternal  authority, 
and  the  social  and  intellectual  emancipation  that 
has  imperceptibly  fallen  to  their  lot  as  a  con- 
sequence of  the  age  they  live  in,  is  consciously  com- 
pleted by  themselves  in  their  deepest  personal 
relations. 

Henriette  Herz — in  a  certain  sense  Rahel's  rival 
in  the  social  life  of  Berlin — declares  that  the  soul 
of  the  Jewish  woman,  thus  awakened,  reached  its 
highest  development  in  and  through  Rahel. 

Rahel  possessed  the  characteristics  that  dis- 
tinguish great  minds  among  her  people:  a  deep 
longing  for  directness  of  life  in  sunshine  and 
splendour,  in  fervour  and  passion,  and  an  equally 


io  Rahel  Varnhagen 

deep  longing  for  the  calm  of  the  desert,  there  to 
meditate  on  life,  its  paths  and  its  goal.  The  in- 
tellectual energy  that  oppression  had  checked  in 
its  outward  tendency  had  in  Rahel — as  in  the 
foremost  of  her  people — turned  inwards.  Rahel, 
through  her  independence  of  thought  and  her 
passion  for  liberty,  was  far  in  advance  of  the 
women  of  her  time,  Jewish  as  well  as  German. 
But  viewed  in  connection  with  the  whole  de- 
velopment Rahel  is  typical  of  the  great  move- 
ment which  is  still  taking  place — that  movement 
which  seeks  to  evolve  the  completely  human 
personality  from  the  feminine  creature  of 
sex. 

In  the  innumerable  records  of  admiration  that 
her  contemporaries  have  left  about  Rahel,  her 
race  is  scarcely  mentioned — a  thing  that  in  these 
days  of  anti-Semiticism  strikes  one  as  almost  in- 
conceivable. But  it  seems  as  though  the  human- 
ism of  that  time  was  so  profound  that  the  question 
of  race,  among  cultivated  people,  had  lost  its 
meaning.  Or  did  perhaps  Rahel's  own  great 
personality  place  her  beyond  and  above  all  cus- 
tomary points  of  view  where  her  people  were  con- 
cerned? Or  were  the  bright  sides  of  that  people 


Origin  u 

more  conspicuous  and  the  dark  sides  less  so  than 
in  our  time? 

Whether  it  was  that  one  of  these  reasons  or  all 
together  caused  her  contemporaries  to  see  in  her  a 
personality  equally  detached  and  unique — it  is 
certain  that  this  way  of  regarding  herself  did  not 
free  her  from  the  pain  of  belonging  to  a  nation  so 
long  exiled  and  wronged,  the  less  so  as  she — in 
common  with  other  delicately  organised  Jews — 
was  doubly  pained  by  all  the  consequences  this 
past  history  had  left  behind  in  the  soul  of  the 
people.  Every  prejudice,  every  instance  of  ill- 
breeding,  every  baseness  that  she  encountered  in 
those  around  her  afflicted  her  more  deeply  than 
similar  things  met  with  elsewhere. 

"I  imagine  that  just  as  I  was  being  thrust  into  this 
world  a  supernatural  being  plunged  a  dagger  into  my 
heart,  with  these  words:  'Now,  have  feeling,  see  the 
world  as  only  a  few  see  it,  be  great  and  noble ;  nor  can 
I  deprive  you  of  restless,  incessant  thought.  But 
with  one  reservation:  be  a  Jewess!'  And  now  my 
whole  life  is  one  long  bleeding.  By  keeping  calm  I 
can  prolong  it ;  every  movement  to  staunch  the  bleed- 
ing is  to  die  anew,  and  immobility  is  only  possible  to 
me  in  death  itself .  .  .  ." 

"  How  loathsomely  degrading,  offensive,  insane,  and 
low  are  my  surroundings,  which  I  cannot  avoid.  One 
single  defilement,  a  mere  contact,  sullies  me  and  dis- 


12  Rahel  Varnhagen 

turbs  my  nobility.  And  this  struggle  goes  on  for 
ever!  All  the  beauty  that  I  meet  with  in  life  passes 
me  by  as  a  stranger,  and  I  am  compelled  to  live  un- 
known among  the  unworthy!" 

It  is  in  connection  with  this  extreme  sensitive- 
ness that  we  must  interpret  Rahel's  later  words: 
that  whole  forests  of  vegetation  within  her  had 
been  laid  waste  by  "parents,  brothers,  and  sisters, 
men  and  women  friends,  and  miserable  lovers." 

That  Rahel  should  have  ascribed  to  her  descent 
all  the  sufferings  that  tormented  her,  is  justified  in 
a  deeper  sense  than  perhaps  she  herself  intended. 
Outwardly  there  was  scarcely  more  than  one 
sorrow  in  her  life  that  was  caused — and  that  only 
in  part — by  her  being  a  Jewess,  namely,  the  break- 
ing off  of  her  first  engagement. 

But  the  decisive  point  is  that  Rahel's  blood  is 
the  blood  of  a  Jewish  woman,  and  that  this  blood 
is  not  only  made  strong  by  the  best  qualities  of 
the  race,  but  at  the  same  time  heavy  by  its  most 
grievous  misfortunes. 

Jakob  Wassermann,   in  whom  the  conscious- . 
ness  of  his  race  is  deeper  than  in  any  other  Jewish 
writer  of  our  time,  has  maintained  in  an  essay  on 
Rahel1  that  "the  melancholy  intensity  and  painful 

1  Der  Tag,  March  24, 1904. 


Origin  13 

shyness, "  that  Rahel  herself  suffered  from,  belong 
to  her  as  the  prototype  of  the  modern  Jewish 
woman  of  culture;  that  love  of  humanity  was 
intensified  in  her  by  a  mysterious  feeling  of  in- 
debtedness; that  her  enthusiasm  becomes  ecstasy, 
that  her  measure  is  excess ;  that  her  devotion  has  a 
fervour  that  completely  embraces,  nay,  is  fused 
with  its  object. 

Wassermann  in  this  passage  accentuates  rather 
the  weaknesses  of  the  Jewess's  disposition.  I 
have  often  had  the  opportunity  of  admiring  its 
great  qualities. 

Every  one  knows — and  many  acknowledge — 
the  intellectual  gifts,  creative  force,  thirst  for 
knowledge,  and  persevering,  clear-sighted  energy 
of  the  Jewish  people.  But  too  little  is  said  of  the 
qualities  which  nevertheless  appear  most  char- 
acteristic to  those  who  have  seen  Jewish  women 
and  men  at  close  quarters:  their  strength  in  love, 
their  sense  of  fraternity,  their  helpfulness  and 
self-sacrifice.  It  was  not  an  accident  that  Jesus 
came  of  the  Jewish  people.  The  attempts  now 
made  to  prove  that  he  was  an  Aryan  are  a  waste 
of  labour  for  those  who — as  in  my  case — have  more 
readily  found  his  qualities  in  those  of  Jewish  than 
in  those  of  Germanic  descent. 


14  Rahel  Varnhagen 

Rahel  possessed  all  the  merits  of  her  race,  but 
in  a  special  degree  those  just  mentioned.  The 
deep,  warm  Oriental  disposition,  the  passionate, 
rich  blood,  no  doubt  found  their  greatest  ex- 
pression in  her  erotic  experiences.  But  the  Ori- 
ental force  of  love  appears  in  all  her  feelings:  in 
family  affection,  in  friendship,  in  her  worship 
of  her  great  masters,  in  her  motherliness.  She 
speaks  on  one  occasion  of  the  griefs  of  parents 
and  says  that  she  can  well  understand  them,  for 
"many  realms  of  grief  have  I  explored."  That 
warm,  red  blood,  that  strong,  quick  pulse,  which 
made  her  live  in  love  and  suffer  through  love  all 
her  life,  are  racial  characteristics,  raised  in  her 
to  their  highest  power.  Her  race  and  her  in- 
dividuality combined  made  her  surround  the 
object  of  her  love,  affection,  friendship  with  great 
devotion — even  when  she  is  aware  that  her  feeling 
is  exclusively  nourished  from  sources  of  her  own. 
She  was  grateful  so  long  as  she  could  continue  to 
love,  she,  who  had  found  one  of  the  bitterest  of 
love's  secrets  to  be  that  people  not  only  do  not 
understand  one  another,  but  "do  not  love  one 
another  at  the  same  time."  Rahel  certainly 
possessed  self-esteem,  a  feeling  to  which  she  gives 
expression  as  frank  as  it  is  justified.  But  in  her, 


Origin  15 

as  in  others  who,  from  one  cause  or  another — an 
unfortunate  exterior,  for  instance,  or  a  desposed 
origin — have  been  injured  times  without  number, 
this  self-esteem  was,  so  to  speak,  theoretical;  it 
did  not  gush  forth  spontaneously,  it  sufficed 
neither  for  due  self-assertion  in  everyday  life  nor 
for  the  uncompromising  attitude  necessary  in 
exceptional  cases. 

"  Two  unutterable  faults  I  have,"  says  Rahel  in 
reference  to  the  bas-relief  of  her  by  F.  Tieck. 
This,  and  another  portrait,  she  found  very  like, 
but  both  were  distasteful  to  her,  since  she  saw  in 
them  these  two  faults  clearly  expressed : 

"Too  much  gratitude,  and  too  great  a  regard  for  the 
human  countenance.  ...  I  should  sooner  be  able 
to  grasp  my  own  heart  and  wound  it  than  injure  a 
human  face  or  look  at  one  that  had  been  injured. 
And  I  am  too  grateful,  seeing  that  fortune  has  been 
against  me  and  my  first  thought  is  always  of  repaying 
evil  with  good. 

"All  this  results  from  bountiful,  careless  nature's 
having  given  me -one  of  the  most  delicate,  highly 
organised  hearts  in  the  world,  which,  however,  is  not 
seen,  since  I  have  no  personal  amiability.  ..."  "I  have 
many  gifts  but  no  courage,  not  that  courage  which 
might  set  my  gifts  in  motion,  not  that  courage  which 
might  teach  me  to  enjoy  life,  even  at  another's  ex- 
pense. I  rank  the  personality  of  others  higher  than 


1 6  Rahel  Varnhagen 

my  own;  I  prefer  peace  to  enjoyment  and  have  there- 
fore never  known  the  latter." 

But  one  need  not  be  a  Jewess  to  make  the  ex- 
perience that  consideration  and  thoughtfulness, 
forbearance  and  kindness  do  not  result  in  others 
behaving  to  us  as  we  to  them,  if  these  qualities 
are  combined  with  disinterestedness  in  what  con- 
cerns one's  self.  The  unassuming  person  is  passed 
by,  while  the  exacting  and  inconsiderate  teach 
others  to  show  circumspection  and  tact — that  is 
an  experience  which  all  races  will  confirm.  When 
Rahel's  family  once  gave  her  a  Christmas  present 
that  was  both  useless  and  ugly,  and  they  excused 
themselves  .by  saying  that  "it  was  so  difficult  to 
find  anything  for  her, "  who  was  thankful  for  the 
smallest  kindness  and  provided  herself  with  as  little 
as  possible,  Rahel  broke  out  into  lamentations 
over  her  own  lack  of  charm,  to  which  she  also 
ascribed  her  capacity  to  assert  herself  gracefully. 

One  of  Rahel's  friends,  W.  von  Burgsdorf,  says 
with  profound  understanding  of  her  nature,  that 
he  at  once  learned  not  to  take  her  literally;  that 
behind  her  words,  which  often  seemed  stronger 
than  their  occasion,  he  soon  found  that  she  must 
have  been  brought  up  in  a  long  grief. 

"For,  it  is  true,  a  trace   of   the    destiny  you 


Origin  17 

have  gone  through  is  visible  in  you;  one  notices  in 
you  the  early  acquired  silence  and  concealment. 
.  .  .  Every  scar  that  fate  has  left  on  the  charac- 
ter disturbs  your  consciousness.  ..."  But  he 
added  with  perfect  truth:  "The  same  force  which 
strives  to  go  to  the  bottom  of  pain,  in  you  returns 
with  equal  grace  to  joy.  You  are  so  full  of  easy, 
glorious  life." 

But  this  long  grief  was  neither  exclusively  nor 
even  primarily  due  to  her  Jewish  birth.  That 
she  was  so  much  more  vulnerable,  shy,  easily  dis- 
couraged, unpretending  than  other  Jewesses  of 
her  circle,  depended  on  the  circumstances  which 
determined  her  childhood  and  youth. 

Rahel  herself  indicates  the  suffering  of  her  child- 
hood and  youth  when  she  speaks  of  the  strong 
heart  nature  had  given  her,  but  which  her  "hard, 
strict,  violent,  capricious,  gifted,  almost  insane 
father  overlooked  and  broke — yes,  broke.  De- 
stroyed all  my  capacity  for  action,  without,  how- 
ever, being  able  to  enfeeble  my  character. "  And 
thus  she  also  lost  the  "courage  to  be  happy" 
which  nature  had  given  her. 

Of  this  father,  the  banker  Levin-Markus — his 
children  afterwards  adopted  the  name  of  Robert — 


1 8  Rahel  Varnhagen 

there  is  a  portrait  in  Berlin  which  shows  in- 
telligence, love  of  pleasure,  an  outward  bent  of 
mind,  and  harshness.  The  cane  he  holds  in  his 
hand  was  the  sceptre  he  wielded  over  his  family. 
For  at  that  time  the  authority  of  the  head  of  the 
family  was  a  dogma  that  had  not  yet  been  attacked 
either  in  Christian  or  Jewish  homes.  But  here  it 
must  be  added  that  the  father  was  personally  a 
despot,  who  demanded  unconditional  subser- 
vience from  those  about  him,  and  neither  tolerated 
an  independent  will  nor  a  contradictory  opinion. 

And  under  the  rule  of  this  father  Rahel  grew  up, 
the  leading  characteristic  of  whose  nature  was  a 
most  pronounced  independence! 

Among  her  father's  numerous  decrees  was  one 
that  no  birthdays  were  to  be  kept  in  the  family. 
Thus  all  Rahel  knew  about  hers  was  that  she  was 
born  on  Whitsunday,  1771,  and  that  it  fell  in 
May ;  her  biographers  have  ascertained  that  in  that 
year  it  was  May  iQth.  She  was  the  eldest  child 
and  was  so  extremely  delicate  and  weak  that  at 
first  she  lay  wrapped  in  cotton-wool  in  a  box.  To 
strengthen  her  body  by  suitable  remedies  was  an 
idea  that  no  more  occurred  to  her  parents  than  to 
others  of  the  time.  One  illness  after  another 
attacked  her  susceptible  frame  during  childhood, 


Origin  19 

and  this  susceptibility  persisted  throughout  life 
as  a  part  of  her  sufferings.  But  also  of  her 
joys.  For  the  delicate  organisation,  which  caused 
her  to  sicken  from  a  breath  of  air  and  recover 
in  a  sunbeam,  implied  at  the  same  time  that 
extreme  sensitiveness  to  all  mental  impressions 
whereby  her  enjoyment  was  multiplied.  This 
susceptibility,  this  Reizbarkeit,  in  Lamprecht's 
extended  meaning  of  the  word,  involved  none 
of  that  want  of  consideration,  that  lack  of  self- 
control,  which  people  of  the  present  day  desig- 
nate and  excuse  by  the  elastic  expression  "nerves." 
Rahel  had  perhaps  to  thank  the  strictness  of 
her  home  for  her  rare  self-control,  in  part  di- 
rectly, and  in  part  through  its  evoking  her 
powers  of  resistance.  To  live  in  spite  of  all  and 
to  live  a  life  rich  in  meaning,  not  to  allow  her 
suffering  to  be  remarked  by  those  about  her,  it  was 
to  this  that  Rahel  directed  from  her  earliest  years 
the  strength  of  will  she  had  inherited  from  her 
race  in  general  and  from  her  father  in  particular. 

For  this  energy  of  self-preservation,  which  was 
increased  by  her  ill-health,  she  had  full  use  in  the 
still  harder  fight  for  her  personal  independence 
against  this  father,  whose  outbursts  of  anger, 
unreasonable  commands,  scornful  address,  and 


20  Rahel  Varnhagen 

brutal  assaults  made  the  whole  family  tremble. 
Rahel  alone  ventured  now  and  then  to  oppose  him. 
Her  incorruptible  love  of  truth,  her  indomitable 
independence  were  regarded  by  her  father  as 
defiance  and  obstinacy,  faults  which  he  tried  to 
break,  with  the  same  enjoyment  as  a  cannibal 
breaking  human  bones.  One  shudders  at  the 
thought  of  the  ill-treatment  the  girl,  equally  sen- 
sitive in  mind  and  body,  had  to  undergo,  an  ill- 
treatment  which  she  summed  up  in  the  words  : 

"A  more  tortured  youth  cannot  be  experienced; 
no  one  can  be  more  ill  or  nearer  to  madness. " 

Every  child  that,  from  one  cause  or  another, 
has  grown  up  in  harsh  surroundings,  bears  through 
life  the  consequences  of  the  first  years  of  its  life. 
So  also  was  it  with  Rahel.  During  these  years 
she  suffered  so  much  that,  according  to  her  own 
words,  she  ought  to  have  exhausted  all  her  possi- 
bilities in  this  direction!  She  sees  that  the  lack 
of  charm  by  which  she  means  candour,  self- 
confidence,  ease  of  manner — of  which  she  is  so 
bitterly  aware,  has  its  origin  in  this  childhood  of 
ill-treatment  and  oppression,  for  life  is  kind  to 
those  whose  "earliest  conditions  of  life  have  been 
blessed."  And  it  is  true  that  such  people  ap- 
proach life  with  confidence,  while  those  who  have 


Origin  21 

been  unhappy  in  childhood  stand  awkwardly  and 
timidly  when  happiness  stretches  out  its  hand,  as 
though  they  lacked  courage  to  conquer  a  place  for 
themselves  or  strength  to  keep  that  which  they 
have  chanced  to  win.  Rahel's  early  youth  seems 
to  have  been  made  still  more  difficult  through 
the  father  being  proud  of  the  gifts  his  daughter  had 
inherited  from  himself,  of  the  remarks  by  which  she 
soon  attracted  attention  in  his  select  social  circle. 
His  own  brilliant  intelligence  and  keen  wit  brought 
him  and  his  house  into  request,  and  he  wished  to 
gain  in  his  daughter  a  reinforcement  of  his  own 
influence.  Rahel  herself  says  that  up  to  her 
fourteenth  year  she  was  witty  and  thus  fell  under 
the  suspicion  of  her  Jewish  circle — a  remark  which 
implies  that  she  was  witty  at  the  expense  of  others. 
With  adolescence  we  may  suppose  that  she  began 
consciously  to  criticise  her  father's  way  of  using 
his  wit,  and  thus  commenced  the  tacit  or  open 
struggle  not  only  between  their  wills,  but  between 
their  souls.  He  wished  to  stamp  his  daughter 
in  his  own  image,  that  of  the  external  and  bril- 
liant man  of  society.  But  this  attempted  mould- 
ing may  have  been  the  very  thing  that  awakened 
Rahel's  self-consciousness  both  to  the  temptations 
she  ought  to  avoid  and  the  ideal  she  wished  to 


22  Rahel  Varnhagen 

pursue.  The  disgust  her  father  and  his  whole 
nature  inspired  in  her  burned  away  all  possibility 
of  frivolity,  of  superficiality,  and  turned  her  mind 
inward,  in  the  certainty  that  only  by  lonely  paths 
could  she  find  and  preserve  her  essential  ego. 

Goethe  says  somewhere  that  "persistence  and 
directness  of  aim"  are  properties  that  are  found 
even  in  the  most  obscure  Jew.  When  these 
properties  are  united  to  a  rich  material  for  person- 
ality, they  produce  the  wholeness,  unity,  coa- 
lescence which  Rahel  recognises  in  herself — and 
others  in  her — as  that  which  separates  her  from 
other  people  in  the  most  distinctive  way.  "All 
my  life  I  have  only  considered  myself  as  Rahel 
and  nothing  else,"  she  said  once,  expressing  sur- 
prise at  the  attention  that  was  shown  her  during  an 
illness.  But  she  became  Rahel  in  that  "furnace  of 
affliction"  from  which  her  personality  proceeded 
as  though  cast  in  bronze  and  her  will  like  hardened 
steel. 

Rahel  calls  it  a  gift  of  God  that  she  always 
knows  what  she  wants,  although  in  spite  of  her 
strength  of  will  she  has  been  "abused  and  shouted 
down  and  thwarted" — a  thing  which  nevertheless 
concerns  only  the  periphery  of  her  existence. 

Her  strength  of  will  not  only  sustained  her  in 


Origin  23 

spite  of  ill-health  but  multiplied  her  powers  when 
they  were  required  for  others,  as  nurse,  for  in- 
stance. But  she  derived  yet  another  charac- 
teristic, important  in  daily  life,  from  her  race: 
the  practicalness,  presence  of  mind  and  organi- 
sation which  gave  her  power  over  the  multitude  of 
little,  everyday  tasks,  constantly  tending  to  chaos. 
This  rapid  and  practical  sense  of  actuality,  which 
is  the  secret  of  the  Jewish  people's  success,  was 
enhanced,  through  Rahel's  rich  nature,  in  her 
to  a  beneficent  development  of  an  eternally  fresh 
life,  "composed  of  nothing  but  real  being,"  as 
Varnhagen  expresses  it.  Through  order,  tidiness, 
neatness,  and  supervision,  Rahel  possessed  that 
grasp  of  daily  life  without  which  it  never  acquires 
style  or  beauty. 

Through  these  qualities  she  became  not  only 
good,  but  really  helpful.  And  this  Oriental  com- 
bination of  a  sense  of  reality  and  mysticism  is 
found  wherever  the  mysticism  is  deep.  Nay,  is  it 
not,  so  to  spea^:,  the  actual  characteristic  of  the 
founder  of  religion  and  is  it  not  by  means  of  this 
very  characteristic  that  the  Orient  has  given  the 
world  all  its  great  religions? 

The  Germanic  race  and  culture,  in  the  midst  of 
which  Rahel  grew  up,  undoubtedly  contributed  to 


24  Rahel  Varnhagen 

deepen  her  nature,  to  give  it  greater  diversity. 
But  the  invincibility  of  its  individuality,  the  in- 
destructibility of  its  fire,  the  lightning  rapidity 
of  its  clearsightedness,  the  profundity  of  its  medi- 
tation, the  keenness  of  its  analysis,  the  wildness  of 
its  despair,  the  jubilation  of  its  gratitude, — all  these 
are  as  Eastern  as  the  Psalms  and  Ecclesiastes. 

After  her  father's  death  in  1789,  Rahel's  life 
become  easier.  Freed  from  daily  suffering,  her 
health,  through  a  "successful  revolution,"  also 
improved.  She  felt  an  inclination  for  the  pleasures 
of  youth,  and  even  learned  to  dance — but  soon 
had  enough  of  dancing  as  a  social  amusement. 
In  the  attic  under  the  paternal  roof  she  had  plenty 
of  time  and  leisure  for  her  inner  development. 
But  within  the  family  circle  there  remained, 
amongst  other  things,  the  authority  inherited  by 
the  brothers  from  the  father  over  the  female 
members  of  the  family,  which  to  Rahel  was  espe- 
cially onerous  in  questions  of  money,  where,  more- 
over, her  mother's  parsimony  in  daily  life  was  more 
disagreeable  than  her  brother's  acquisitiveness. 

Her  mother  seems  to  have  been  an  insignificant 
woman,  broken  down  and  made  melancholy  by 
her  husband's  tyranny,  and  Rahel's  nature  met 


Origin  25 

with  no  appreciation  from  her.  Of  the  others, 
her  sister,  Rose,  may  have  been  on  cordial  terms 
with  Rahel,  though  without  any  very  profound 
community  of  souls.  Such  a  community,  how- 
ever, united  her  to  her  younger  brother  Ludwig — 
her  "Herzensbruder" — who,  himself  an  author, 
introduces  her  into  the  society  of  young  poets  in 
Berlin  after  1800.  The  elder  brothers  again, 
Moritz  and  Marcus,  are  absorbed  in  financial  in- 
terests, and  although  in  this  particular  they  be- 
have well  to  their  sisters,  they  have  inwardly  little 
in  common. 

And  Rahel  seems  to  be  prepared  not  to  meet 
with  appreciation  in  the  family  circle.  What  she 
asks  is  that  she  may  be  left  in  peace.  But  as  usual 
her  mother,  brothers,  and  sisters,  even  after  Rahel 
had  become  the  celebrated  Rahel,  saw  in  her  only 
the  daughter  and  the  sister,  on  whose  strong  Jew- 
ish family  affection  they  could  always  rely,  when 
they  needed  it  in  sickness  or  trouble,  sorrow  or 
anxiety.  Between  whiles  they  misinterpret,  ad- 
monish, and  disapprove  with  the  right  of  indelicacy 
which  members  of  a  family  regard  even  to-day  as 
their  most  indisputable  privilege  in  dealing  with 
one  another. 

Rahel  breaks  out  to  a  friend: 


26  Rahel  Varnhagen 

"  I  am  made  ill  by  embarrassment,  by  constraint, 
as  long  as  I  live.  I  live  against  my  will.  .  .  .  My 
everlasting  dissimulation,  my  circumspection,  my 
compliance  are  wearing  me  out.  I  cannot  endure  it 
any  longer,  and  nothing  and  nobody  can  help  me." 
"  /  have  been  spared  no  blow,  no  stab,  no  thrust,  or  sting,'1 
she  says  in  the  connection. 

It  may  be  presumed  that  Rahel,  like  most 
strong  natures,  suffered  for  a  very  long  time  be- 
fore something,  trivial  in  the  eyes  of  the  others, 
made  her  break  out.  She  says  herself:  "Few 
are  more  explosive  than  I:  I  can  keep  it  in  for  a 
long  time,  but  sooner  or  later  it  has  to  come  out. " 
Probably  she  could  be  hasty,  rough,  and  un- 
reasonable with  her  own  people,  as  with  Varn- 
hagen, in  questions  where,  against  them  as  against 
him,  she  was  nevertheless  right  in  the  main.  Like 
others,  she  had  les  defauts  de  ses  qualites. 

On  the  whole  she  shows  by  her  actions  how  deep 
her  family  feeling  is. 

She  writes  to  her  family : 

"Do  I  not  tell  you  everything?  Do  I  ever  allow 
myself  any  rest  before  you  have  had  all  the  intellect- 
ual, agreeable,  social,  and  other  news  I  can  get?  Have 
I  ever  said  I?  Do  I  not  always  say  we  ? — and  God 
knows  how  incessantly  I  think  it !  I  am  no  hardened 
egoist,  but  a  joyful  and  sensitive  expander  of  life." 


Origin  27 

Rahel  has  a  need  of  worshipping,  of  looking  up 
to  people. 

"  I  cannot  speak  of  him — for  I  can  only  be 
just,"  she  says  on  one  occasion.  "With  my 
nature  I  have  been  sufficiently  revenged,  if  I  can 
no  more  love."  She  always  believes  in  a  person 
from  the  first.  "It  is  one  of  my  estimable  stupi- 
dities always  to  take  people  seriously,"  she  says. 
"My  only  talent  is  being  able  to  see  things  on  a 
large  scale,  my  only  pleasure — and  only  levity — 
being  able  to  forget  myself,"  she  writes  on  another 
occasion.  And  of  these  talents  those  about  her 
also  had  the  benefit. 

But  it  was  precisely  her  quality  of  "life- 
expander"  that  above  all  displeased  her  timorous 
and  narrow-minded  mother,  who  had  diffused 
about  herself  a  cool  and  musty  spiritual  atmos- 
phere. Rahel's  love  of  her  family  was  what  she 
herself  calls  "fibre-love, "  the  feeling  which  nature 
intertwines  with  every  fibre  of  our  being  and  which 
keeps  its  strength  even  when  one  has  scarcely  a 
thought  in  common.  When  there  was  need  of  it 
she  could  sacrifice  for  them  time,  strength,  money, 
pleasures,  and  their  real  interests  went  "right  to 
the  bottom  of  her  heart."  But  to  their  petti- 
ness and  narrowness  she  would  not  yield.  The 


28  Rahel  Varnhagen 

criterion  that  her  family  circle  had  imposed  upon 
itself  was  the  point  of  view  Rahel  hated:  "What 
was  fitting  and  proper."  According  to  this  valua- 
tion the  trivial  became  great  and  the  significant 
of  small  account.  When  Rahel  was  herself — dar- 
ing, animated,  sparkling,  unprejudiced — the  least 
of  her  relatives  assumed  a  right  to  preach  to 
her  of  duty,  consideration,  moderation,  and 
prudence ! 

Meanwhile  indignation  accumulated  within  her. 
And  when  her  "heavily  charged  store  of  ideas 
found  an  outlet, "  it  is  evident  that  she  caused 
consternation  by  the  passionate  force  of  her 
opinions;  that  she  was  considered  overbearing  and 
domineering,  or  any  other  of  the  words  that  are 
used  about  people  of  strong  convictions  by  those 
who  are  incapable  of  a  strong  conviction.  But 
all  those,  on  the  other  hand,  who  themselves  had 
views,  found  Rahel  delicately  sensitive,  tactful, 
forbearing,  tolerant  of  everything  but  pretentious 
stupidity,  slander,  and  lying  in  all  its  forms — 
whether  more  or  less  conscious,  more  or  less 
impudent. 

When  Rahel  takes  a  schoolgirl's  delight  in 
driving  with  an  opera  singer  to  a  dress  rehearsal  on 
the  Sabbath,  one  can  understand  how  the  pressure 


Origin  29 

of  Jewish  customs  came  to  the  aid  of  that  of  the 
family. 

On  the  whole,  however,  Rahel's  relations  with 
her  brothers  remained  good.  And  when  she  ex- 
claims that  "they  neither  regarded  her  nor  loved 
her,"  these  words  must  not  be  taken  absolutely, 
but  only  relatively  to  Rahel's  own  capacity  for 
devotion. 

With  her  mother,  on  the  other  hand,  her  rela- 
tions became  finally  so  strained  that  she  insisted  on 
Rahel's  leaving  the  paternal  house  in  Jagerstrasse, 
which  in  spite  of  all  had  become  dear  to  her,  where 
the  mother  then  lapsed  into  "her  dismal,  thread- 
bare, uncomfortable  solitude,"  in  "pitiful  miserli- 
ness. "  But  Rahel,  thus  exiled,  visited  her  mother 
daily,  although  the  latter  received  her  with  the 
greatest  indifference,  until  in  1809  her  mother  lay 
on  her  death-bed  and  for  four  months  Rahel 
nursed  her  day  and  night.  The  approach  of  death 
dispersed  the  many  misunderstandings  which  had 
concealed  the  daughter's  real  nature  from  the 
mother.  The  grateful  love  her  mother  now  at 
last  showed  Rahel,  as  well  as  the  courage  with 
which  she  bore  her  sufferings,  made  Rahel  tend 
her  with  a  "passionate  pain."  But  Rahel  no 
more  altered  her  relation  to  her  than  to  her  father: 


30  Rahel  Varnhagen 

they  had  each  had  their  share  in  the  sufferings  of 
childhood  and  youth  under  which  her  heart  had 
groaned,  and  Rahel  did  not  forget.  But  while  she 
could  never  forgive  her  father,  she  forgave  her 
mother,  since  she  had  been  the  father's  victim  as 
much  as  Rahel  herself. 

The  sufferings  that  had  only  darkened  her 
mother's  narrow  nature,  kindled  in  Rahel's  a 
great  light:  that  of  sympathy;  and  gave  her  a 
great  strength:  that  of  solitude.  The  power  of 
introspection  and  absorption  that  solitude,  and 
only  that,  can  give,  had  a  determining  effect  on 
Rahel's  nature.  However  much  she  may  after- 
wards become  a  woman  of  society,  she  yet  lives, 
until  Varnhagen  appears,  in  a  perpetual  inner 
solitude  as  a  consequence  of  the  circumstances  of 
which  she  says  that  through  them  her  life  has  been 
murderously  taken  from  her. 

In  a  letter  to  Varnhagen,  Rahel  says : 

"  This  week  I  have  thought  out  what  a  paradox  is :  a 
truth  which  has  not  yet  been  able  to  find  room  to  re- 
veal itself,  which  violently  thrusts  itself  into  the  world, 
and  is  twisted  out  of  joint  in  the  process.  ...  So  am 
I,  unfortunately,  and  this  will  be  the  death  of  me. 
Never  can  my  soul  gently  glide  into  fair  undulating 
motions ....  How  truly,  beloved  friend,  and  how 


Origin  31 

sadly  do  you  compare  me  with  a  tree  that  has  been 
pulled  up  out  of  the  earth  and  then  had  its  top  buried 
therein.  Nature  has  designed  me  too  strong." 

And  just  as  the  peculiar  force  of  Rand's  thought 
can  only  be  understood  as  the  result  of  solitude,  so 
must  her  peculiar  tone  of  feeling  be  understood  as 
derived  from  suffering. 

Rahel  belonged  in  a  spiritual  sense  to  that  class 
of  persons  who  are  called  in  a  physical  sense 
"bleeders."  A  scratch,  which  in  another  person 
would  easily  heal,  may  in  them  occasion  prolonged 
bleeding,  and  the  film  over  a  wound  is  so  thin 
that  it  breaks  at  the  slightest  shock  and  causes 
a  fresh  flow  of  blood. 

No  one  who  does  not  perceive  this  can  ever  un- 
derstand Rahel,  when  she  uses  the  strongest  words 
about  sufferings  long  past  or  when  she  is  painfully 
distressed  at  what  seems  to  others  a  trifle. 

For  with  this  little  wound  all  her  other  wounds 
are  opened,  and  in  this  complaint  are  echoed  all 
the  lamentations  of  her  people. 

Whether  or  no  Rahel  perceived  what  she  had  to 
thank  her  race  for,  it  is  certain  that  the  bitterness 
with  which  in  youth  she  speaks  of  her  birth,  dis- 
appears with  time.  Perhaps  this  was  simply  due 


32  Rahel  Varnhagen 

to  the  growth  of  that  amor  fati,  which  is  to  the 
human  being  what  flowering  is  to  the  aloe,  the 
great  feat  of  strength  before  death  ? 

"I  no  longer  envy  anybody  anything  but  such 
things  as  no  one  has" — these  words  of  Rahel's 
are  significant  of  her  state  of  soul  in  the  last  years 
of  her  life. 

Rahel  had  always  been  willing  to  acknowledge 
her  descent.  Indeed,  in  Paris  she  laid  stress  on 
the  fact  that  she  was  a  Jewess  from  Berlin,  and 
rejoiced  that  she  did  honour  to  her  native  city. 
So  also  did  she  rejoice  when,  during  the  war, 
she  could  manifest  the  patriotic  self-sacrificing  of 
the  Jews  in  her  own  person  and  through  her  co- 
religionists. That  on  her  marriage  she  went  over 
to  Christianity  was  neither  a  defection  from 
Judaism,  which  she  had  never  embraced  as  a 
believer,  nor  an  act  of  faith  as  regards  the 
Christian  religion,  but  only  the  drawing  of  a  sign 
of  equation  between  herself  and  the  man  whose 
position  in  life  she  was  to  share.  When  the  patri- 
otic fever  that  succeeded  the  Napoleonic  wars 
evoked  manifestations  of  anti-Semiticism,  she  was 
deeply  ontraged  and  expressed  to  her  Christian 
friends  her  detestation  of  this  brutality.  The 
more  she  learned,  freed  from  dependence  on  her 


Origin  33 

own  relatives,  to  look  upon  Judaism  objectively, 
the  more  was  she  reconciled  to  the  fate  that  made 
her  a  member  of  that  nation.  And  on  her  death- 
bed, when  she  finally  saw  her  whole  life  from  the 
point  of  view  of  eternity,  she  praised  in  affecting 
words  the  destiny  which  had  made  her,  the  fugitive 
from  Egypt  and  the  land  of  Canaan,  so  beloved 
and  cared  for  by  her  dear  ones. 

"  In  solemn  transport  I  think  of  this  origin  of  mine, 
and  of  the  whole  interconnection  of  destinies  through 
which  the  oldest  memories  of  the  human  race  are 
associated  with  the  present  state  of  things,  and  thus 
the  forms  most  widely  separate  in  time  and  space  are 
connected  with  each  other.  That  which  for  so  long  a 
period  of  my  life  appeared  to  me  the  greatest  igno- 
miny, the  bitterest  suffering  and  misfortune,  namely, 
being  born  a  Jewess,  I  would  not  now  renounce  at 
any  price." 

3 


CHAPTER  II 

PERSONALITY 

IN  Rahel's,  as  in  every  other  pronounced  person- 
ality, one  can  point  to  certain  component  parts  by 
which  the  race  and  the  family  have  contributed  to 
its  composition ;  one  can  even  divine  the  process  of 
moulding.  But  the  means  by  which  just  this 
personality  results  from  these  component  parts  and 
from  the  treatment  which  in  others  would  have 
produced  quite  different  forms — that  remains  the 
eternal  riddle.  The  individual  features  of  the 
personality,  its  peculiar  style,  its  unique  charm, 
can  no  more  be  described  or  grasped  in  dealing 
with  the  living  work  of  art — a  consummate 
personality — than  in  dealing  with  the  statue  of 
bronze.  Not  only  the  work  of  art,  as  Kellgren 
has  said,  has  "sprung  from  the  womb  of  a  glowing 
imagination":  the  individuality  too  springs  from 
such  a  womb,  that  of  Nature  herself.  Her  imagi- 
nation works  as  mysteriously  as  that  of  genius,  and 

34 


Personality  35 

her  style  it  is  equally  impossible  to  catch  in  the 
scant,  grey  meshes  of  words. 

Several  of  Rahel's  most  eminent  contemporaries 
have  attempted  to  describe  her  personality.  The 
most  successful  among  them  were  probably  those 
who  approached  most  nearly  to  her  own  self- 
analysis.  For  if  it  can  be  said  of  any  one  that  she 
really  knew  herself,  then  that  person  is  Rahel.  In 
the  whole  world  of  women  there  is  no  one  who  can 
be  better  compared  with  Rahel  in  courage  and 
inclination  for  exploring  her  own  soul,  in  zeal  of 
self-examination,  and  candour  of  self-revelation, 
than  Marie  Bashkirtseff.  For  there  is  need  to 
remind  certain  modern  authors  of  feminine  con- 
fessions that  shamelessness  is  not  synonymous 
with  candour,  nor  communicativeness  with  know- 
ledge of  self. 

Rahel's  letters,  published  after  her  death,  were 
to  her  contemporaries  a  revelation  of  a  new  type 
of  woman  in  the  same  degree  as  Marie  Bashkirt- 
sefFs  Journal  was  to  our  time.  However  differ- 
ent their  natures  may  be  at  times,  they  are  alike 
in  this,  that  their  life  of  the  soul  and  will  is  so  indi- 
vidual, so  marked,  and  that  it  revealed  itself  so 
directly  and  so  consciously,  that  it  became  at  once 
a  spiritual  power  with  which  one  was  brought  into 


36  Rahel  Varnhagen 

relation,  sympathetically  or  antipathetically,  but 
indifference  to  which  was  impossible. 

For  the  rest,  the  manner  of  the  two  self-portraits 
is  as  different  as  the  times  in  which  they  appeared. 
The  young  Russian  paints  herself  en  plein  air,  in 
a  pitiless,  all-revealing  morning  light;  Rahel's 
picture  appears  in  a  chiaroscuro,  in  which  the 
longer  one  looks  the  more  one  discovers. 

In  attempting  to  reproduce  my  impression  of 
Rahel's  personality  I  am  reminded  of  her  own 
words :  that  we  see  ourselves  in  concave  but  others 
in  convex;  that  when  we  try  to  penetrate  and  judge 
a  person,  we  encounter  ourselves,  and  this  makes 
true  objectivity  impossible.  "For  the  resem- 
blance," Rahel  concludes,  "that  exists  between 
persons,  extends  only  to  the  outer  limits  of  their 
being." 

As  one  cannot  reproduce  one's  impression  of  a 
personality  directly,  one  tries  to  do  so  by  means 
of  images.  Thus,  for  instance,  I  may  say  that  to 
me  Rahel  has  the  same  deep  purple,  almost  black 
tint  as  Eleonora  Duse;  that  the  perfume  which 
comes  nearest  to  her  nature  is  that  of  the  yellow 
narcissus,  while  the  music  which  expresses  her 
most  perfectly  is  Beethoven's  Appassionato,.  But 


Personality  37 

in  these  images  I  have  at  the  most  given  an  idea  of 
my  conception  of  Rahel  to  those  who  receive  from 
this  tint,  this  perfume,  and  this  music  impressions 
of  the  same  tone  of  feeling  as  my  own. 

For  in  relation  to  the  great,  mystical  reality — 
the  unique  personality — the  image  is  as  the 
Egyptian  hieroglyphic  sign  for  life  in  relation  to 
living  life  itself. 

There  is  only  one  objective  way  of  drawing  a 
marked  individuality:  to  compare  the  person's 
own  utterances  and  actions  with  the  impression 
his  personality  produces  on  contemporaries.  For 
a  person's  own  words  often  deceive  one,  his  actions 
not  unfrequently,  other's  opinions  more  often  than 
all.  But  if  all  three  agree,  one  can  be  certain  that 
in  the  particular  case,  the  unity  and  cohesion  of 
the  personality  at  least  are  beyond  doubt. 

And  it  is  precisely  this  agreement  between  the 
impression  Rahel  produces  on  others  and  the  in- 
sight she  gives  us  into  her  own  nature,  which 
justifies  the  conclusion  that  she  was  what  she  says 
she  was,  and  that  one  can  best  form  her  image 
from  her  own  confessions. 

What  Rahel  always  and  before  all  else  lays  stress 
upon  is  that  "God  and  Nature"  meant  well  with 


38  Rahel  Varnhagen 

her  but  that  destiny  and  fortune  have  been  against 
her ;  that  nature  was  proud,  nay,  overbearing,  when 
she  came  into  the  world;  that  she  ought  to  have 
been  "high-bom,"  and  that  the  exuberant  powers 
of  happiness  she  possessed  within  her  only  re- 
quired a  little  exemption  from  direct  suffering  to 
show  their  strength.  She  knows  that  she  is  fash- 
ioned to  enjoy  life,  not  merely  to  undergo  it, 
and  it  is  this  source  of  light  in  Rahel's  nature 
— its  healthy,  beautiful  sensuousness,  its  desire 
of  sunshine,  its  "joy  over  what  lies  nearest," 
its  delight  in  the  happiness  of  all  who  are  happy 
— which  gives  Rahel  her  direct  warmth.  And 
it  is  only  with  this  vital  energy  as  the  founda- 
tion of  one's  being  that  a  really  deep  suffering 
is  thinkable;  a  vital  energy  that  rebels  against 
its  torments,  that  is  by  turns  vanquished  and 
victorious  but  never  acknowledges  pain  as  the 
meaning  of  life.  Rahel  calls  herself  a  "fresher, 
gayer,  more  brunette  Hamlet, "  and  Veit,  the  friend 
of  her  youth,  says  that  with  "Philine's  gay  dis- 
position she  combined  Aurelia's  genius  and  heart, 
her  goodness  and  tendency  to  melancholy."  .  .  . 
All  who  have  profoundly  understood  Rahel,  above 
all  Varnhagen,  lay  stress  on  what  I  would  call  the 
chiaroscuro  in  her  nature  as  the  secret  of  its  charm. 


Personality  39 

In  a  letter  from  Jean  Paul  to  Rahel,  which  begins 
with  the  words:  "Winged  one! — in  every  sense" — 
he  says:  "You  treat  life  poetically  and  consequently 
life  treats  you  in  the  same  way.  You  bring  the  lofty 
freedom  of  poetry  into  the  sphere  of  reality,  and  expect 
to  find  again  the  same  beauties  here  as  there. "  .  .  . 

This  judgment  reaches  the  core  of  Rahel's  nature 
It  is  this  pristine  character  of  Rahel's  that  she 
feels  ought  to  have  been  her  fate.  But  her  fate, 
from  the  causes  mentioned  later,  was  a  different 
one.  She  cannot  live  according  to  her  character, 
but  at  least  she  dies  according  to  it,  as  she  says 
every  one  really  does.  She  knows  that  every 
human  being  "has  his  altogether  special  fate," 
since  he  is  "a  moment  of  the  whole,  which  can 
only  exist  once";  and  she  demands  of  existence  at 
least  her  own  special  unhappy  fate,  since  it  has 
not  given  her  the  happy  fate. 

Thus  she  wrote  during  the  cholera  at  Berlin:  "I 
claim  a  special,  personal  fate.  I  cannot  die  of  an 
epidemic  like  a  straw  among  other  ears  of  corn  in  the 
open  field,  scorchejd  by  marsh-gas.  I  will  die  alone  of 
my  malady;  this  is  /,  my  character,  my  person,  my 
physique,  my  fate. " 

And  every  one  has  his  fate,  Rahel  thought,  since 
every  one  has  his  individuality.  Originality,  she 
says,  is  much  more  common  than  frankness;  in- 


40  Rahel  Varnhagen 

deed,  most  people  might  be  original  if  they  would 
only  be  true!  Of  herself  she  can  bear  witness — 
without  any  one  having  challenged  her — that  she 
has  devoted  herself  to  a  god,  Truth,  and  that  each 
time  she  has  been  saved  in  the  misery  of  life,  it  has 
been  through  this  divinity. 

There  is  no  subject  to  which  she  returns  more 
often  in  her  letters  than  originality,  and  where  it 
existed  she  forgave  almost  anything.  "He  who 
honestly  asks  and  answers  himself,  is  always 
occupied  with  realities  and  is  constantly  finding 
things  out.  ...  In  order  to  be  able  to  think, 
honesty  is  above  all  necessary.  ..."  What  she 
hated  most  of  all  was  pedantry,  "for  its  origin  is 
inward  emptiness,  therefore  it  clings  to  forms.  .  .  ." 
A  person  who  is  not  true,  honest,  and  innocent  can 
neither  be  poet,  artist,  philosopher,  human  being, 
friend,  member  of  a  family,  man  of  the  world,  busi- 
ness man,  nor  ruler.  ...  It  is  love  of  truth  that 
is  wanting  in  us;  that  is  the  diseased  spot  of  the 
race,  the  cause  of  all  our  epidemics  of  the  soul.  .  .  . 
It  depends  upon  ourselves  to  become  human  be- 
ings (i.  e.,  original).  But  for  this  an  infinite 
courage  is  needed.  ...  "It  does  not  matter  at 
all  how  one  is,  if  one  cannot  be  as  one  wishes. " 

All  these  utterances  denote  the  nature  that  gave 


Personality  41 

vent  to  itself  in  the  following  answer  to  Varnhagen, 
where  she  playfully  says  that  she  ought  to  be  re- 
cast so  as  to  be  more  tractable:  "Then  I  should 
spurt  out  of  the  mould ! " 

"Some  people  have  too  little  understanding  to  find 
the  truth  within  them,  others  no  courage  to  acknow- 
ledge it,  and  the  great  majority  neither  courage  nor 
understanding,  but  they  wander  and  lie  and  grope  or 
stagnate  through  life  even  to  the  grave. " 

Another  time  she  exclaims:  "I  am  beside  myself! 
For  so  we  call  it  when  the  heart  really  speaks. " 

Honesty  is  to  her  the  necessary  condition  for  keep- 
ing one's  youth:  "When  one  is  honest  in  one's 
thoughts,  one  is  true.  And  only  in  truth  is  health  to 
be  found.  He  who  has  not  this,  grows  old:  wrinkles 
alone  do  not  make  us  old. " 

Nay,  Rahel  assures  us  that  downright,  pure 
brutality  revives  her,  when  she  has  been  wearied 
by  insincerity! 

To  a  young  male  friend  (Bokelmann)  Rahel 
writes  these  profound  words:  "What  makes  the 
mind  and  soul  of  man  colder  than  inactivity?  .  .  . 
Think  always  ceaselessly!  This  is  the  only  duty, 
the  only  happiness.  ..."  And  she  goes  on  to 
implore  him,  however  often  he  may  have  thought 
out  a  thing,  never  to  cease  from  "ploughing  through 
it"  afresh;  never  to  allow  any  dear  and  honoured 


42  Rahel  Varnhagen 

friends,  not  even  herself,  to  seduce  and  master  him 
so  that  he  forgets  the  duty  of  incessant  mental 
work.  He  must  always  have  the  courage  to  hurt 
himself  with  questioning  and  doubts;  to  destroy 
the  most  comfortable  and  beautiful  edifice  of 
thought — one  that  might  have  stood  for  life — 
if  honesty  demands  it;  to  dare  ceaselessly  to 
put  such  questions  to  himself  as  may  shake  to 
their  foundations  all  his  relations  to  other  people ; 
never  to  allow  himself  to  be  lulled  to  sleep  by 
any  system  of  morality  established  once  for  all, 
protective  and  becoming;  never  to  lapse  into  the 
routine  of  custom  in  any  respect  and  thus  bar  the 
gates  of  his  soul;  constantly  to  remain  mentally 
restless,  unquiet,  and  to  remember  her — Rafael's — 
everlasting  mobility  and  freedom,  her  strict,  ever- 
examining  love  of  truth;  not  to  allow  himself  to  be 
led  astray  by  any  one  or  anything  into  a  belief  or 
imprisoned  in  a  bond  which  will  make  him  sigh 
out  his  lif e  as  a  duty ;  not  to  prize  anything  merely 
because  it  is  old  and  bears  a  good  name. 

To  Rahel  herself  this  kind  of  honest  thinking 
and  honest  communication  of  the  result  was  as 
much  a  mental  condition  of  life  as  breathing  a 
physical  one.  In  the  vital  necessity  of  such  honesty 
lies  its  deepest  significance  as  regards  Rahel. 


Personality  43 

Every  one  thinks  more  or  less  for  the  benefit  of 
some  particular  belief,  idea  or  feeling,  and  with- 
holds from  himself  and  others  whatever  conflicts 
with  this;  Rahel,  on  the  other  hand,  is,  as  she 
says  herself  "innocent"  in  her  thinking. 

What  Rahel  loves  in  Angelus  Silesius — that  he 
turns  to  God  in  innocent  questioning,  demands 
no  answer,  makes  no  asseverations,  but  is  capable 
at  the  same  time  of  "regretful  renunciation"  and 
of  being  "a  child's  soul  full  of  courage" — all  this 
may  be  said  of  Rahel  herself.  This  childlike 
quality  of  Rahel  is  accentuated  also  by  her  friends. 
And  this  is  just  the  condition  that  gives  her 
courage  to  speak  out  fully  on  everything,  careless 
as  to  the  effect,  naively  profound  like  a  child,  to 
which  things  established,  sanctioned,  and  acknow- 
ledged have  not  yet  disclosed  their  trenched  am- 
buscades and  barbed-wire  entanglements,  but 
which  moves  fearless  and  unconstrained  so  long 
as  it  is  free  from  preconceptions,  thinking  for 
itself  and  discovering  itself.  But  such  a  child 
Rahel  remained  all  her  life. 

Rahel' s  influence  on  her  friends  of  the  same  age 
takes  especially  that  form  which  is  shown  in  the  letter 
to  Bokelmann,  quoted  above.  The  highly  gifted 
physician,  David  Veit,  Rand's  oldest  male  friend, 


44  Rahel  Varnhagen 

speaks  of  how  ready  he  was  to  be  guided  by  Rahel, 
for  she  did  not  wish  to  dominate  him,  although  she 
unconsciously  did  so  through  the  power  of  the  highest 
human  nature,  through  "her  dear,  princely  soul.  " 

G.  von  Brinckman,  who  was  a  Swede  by  birth  but 
had  been  educated  at  a  German  university  and  ab- 
sorbed the  most  refined  culture  of  the  time  as  a  diplo- 
mat at  the  capitals  of  Europe,  is  even  in  Rahel's  youth 
one  of  her  most  appreciative  friends.  He,  like  Veit, 
ascribes  to  Rahel  a  profound  influence  on  his  develop- 
ment. Brinckman  said  that  he  received  from  Ra- 
hel's exhortations  to  "Geistesmut"  an  impression  as 
strong  as  if  he  had  suddenly  been  transported  to  an 
altogether  new  mental  world.  Rahel's  mental  force, 
her  independence,  her  certainty  that  "higher  morality 
is  reached  through  higher  liberty,"  all  this  trans- 
formed his  own  point  of  view  in  many  cases.  "What 
I  had  sought  in  vain  in  the  wise  and  the  pious: 
undisguised  truth,  independence  of  thought,  and  in- 
tensity of  feeling;  this  came  upon  me  as  a  holy 
revelation  in  the  garret  of  this  extraordinary  'Selbst- 
denkerin,'"  says  Brinckman.  To  look  into  her 
"divinely  beating  heart,"  to  cultivate  the  exchange, 
of  confidences  with  her,  became  to  him  a  necessity, 
passionate  as  a  love,  he  says.  In  the  presence  of 
wise  men  and  princes  he  boasted  of  being  Rahel's  dis- 
ciple, and  during  his  whole  life  her  influence  on  him 
remained  as  "spiritually  powerful  and  highly  human" 
as  ever.  The  correspondence  between  Brinckman 
and  Tegn£r,  published  by  Professor  Wrangel,  is  an 
important  aid  to  our  knowledge  of  the  former. 

Throughout   her   life,   in   a   hundred   different 


Personality  45 

passages,  Rahel  says  that  she  has  always  known 
that  she  neither  could  nor  should  possess  anything 
but  herself;  that  she  therefore  confines  herself  to 
"the  strength  of  my  own  heart"  and  to  "what  my 
mind  shows  me";  that  she  knew  that  only  by 
keeping  within  these  bounds  assigned  to  her  by 
nature  was  she  powerful,  in  all  else  nothing. 

Frequently,  too,  she  speaks  of  "the  great, 
thorough-going  connection  between  all  my  facul- 
ties, the  eternally  indestructible  connection  and 
ceaseless  co-operation  between  my  feeling  and  my 
thought."  On  account  of  this  she  is  able  to  say: 
"I  am  as  much  alone  of  my  kind  as  the  greatest 
manifestation  here  on  earth.  The  greatest  artist, 
philosopher,  or  poet  is  not  above  me.  We  are  of 
the  same  element,  of  the  same  rank,  and  are 
fellows."  This  is  one  of  those  utterances  of 
Rahel's  that  must  be  understood  in  connection 
with  her  individuality  described  above.  Any  one 
who  interprets  this  quotation  as  boasting  knows 
nothing  of  the  individuality's  certainty  of  self, 
as  imperious  as  any  other  certainty. 

Rahel's  constant  heralding  of  the  value  of 
individuality  would  not  have  been  worth  much, 
if  she  herself  had  not  revealed  it.  From  the 
beginning  of  her  life  to  its  close,  from  the  first  to 


46  Rahel  Varnhagen 

the  last  hour  of  each  day,  there  never  occurred 
with  Rahel  what  she  calls  by  a  happy  expression 
"life-pauses."  We  all  recall  hours  and  periods 
that  were  not  permeated  by  the  essential  life  of 
our  personality;  during  which  we  allowed  our- 
selves to  drift ;  allowed  the  bowstring  of  our  will  to 
slacken,  or  let  another  draw  it  tight,  while  we 
acted,  spoke,  judged  in  a  dozing  condition  of  soul. 
There  is  scarcely  any  great  personality  in  whom 
such  pauses  cannot  be  pointed  out;  in  Rahel 
never.  Sorrowful  or  glad,  ill  or  well,  resting  or 
active,  she  filled  the  cup  of  the  moment  to  the 
brim  with  the  fulness  of  her  being.  We  receive 
this  impression  from  everything  Rahel  wrote  and 
from  everything  that  was  written  about  her. 
That  she  lives  in  a  "forest  of  people"  no  doubt 
hinders  her,  like  every  other  social  being,  from 
extending  her  own  branches  as  far  as  they  could 
reach.  But  it  transforms  her  nature  no  more 
than  the  beech,  for  instance,  is  transformed  by  the 
surrounding  pine  forest.  She  is  herself,  though 
not  the  whole  of  herself,  as  necessarily  as  is  the 
growing  tree. 

"  Why  should  I  not  be  natural? "  Rahel  exclaims.     "I 
could  not  affect  anything  better  or  more  varied. " 

Again:     "Even  if  I  stood  before  the  guillotine,  I 


Personality  47 

should  not  be  able  to  say  what  I  am.     I  am  helpful 
and  I  breathe,  more  than  that  I  cannot  remember. " 

These  two  contradictory  utterances  are  signifi- 
cant. For  Rahel's  consciousness  of  her  nature 
and  worth  is  as  real  as  her  unconsciousness,  a 
thing  which  only  seems  impossible  to  the  un- 
tutored in  self-knowledge,  but  which  is  the  dis- 
tinguishing feature  in  all  great,  original  natures. 

Just  because  Rahel  at  every  instant  is  in  perfect 
harmony,  one  quality  balances  the  other;  her 
excitability  does  not  become  hysterical,  her  sensi- 
tiveness sentimental,  her  wit  ironical,  her  analysis 
vivisection,  her  directness  does  not  become  licence 
nor  her  consciousness  a  mirroring  of  self. 

Thought  and  feeling,  meditation  and  action, 
seriousness  and  gaiety,  everything  with  her  is  of  a 
piece;  nothing  contradicts  or  cancels,  everything 
confirms  and  intensifies  the  rest  in  this  harmonious 
nature.  * 

Rahel  knew  that  the  unconscious  is  the  source  of 
strength  in  our  nature.  Thus  she  says,  for  in- 
stance: "In  proper,  deep  sleep  the  soul  goes  home 

1  Schleiermacher,  the  connoisseur  of  personality  above  all 
others,  pointed  out  this  very  unity  as  Rahel's  chief  characteristic. 
See  Chapter  VI,  Social  Life. 


48  Rahel  Varnhagen 

and  bathes  in  God's  lake;  otherwise  it  would  not 
be  able  to  endure." 

But  at  the  same  time  Rahel  knows  that  the 
fundamental  instinct  of  her  being  is  the  thirst  for 
lucidity.  Her  honest  and  keen-sighted  self-analy- 
sis tells  her  that  this  instinct  in  her  is  not  merely 
the  universal  one  of  human  nature,  but  that  with 
her  it  is  a  self-defence :  only  by  thinking  over 
things  do  the  joints  of  her  being  hold  together,  so 
explosive  is  the  effect  of  personal  experiences  with- 
in her.  She  cannot  take  anything  calmly;  every- 
thing, so  far  as  it  has  any  power  to  affect  her,  is 
"insuperably  important."  Indeed,  she  is  un- 
doubtedly right  that  she  would  have  been  near  to 
madness,  if  among  her  other  passions  she  had  not 
had  that  of  thinking  over  things,  not  only  suffering 
through  them.  Or,  in  other  words,  if  in  addition 
to  her  other  sorrows  she  had  not  had  that  of 
thought. 

"I  must  know,  with  regard  to  everything,  how 
it  comes  about  and  how  it  is:  thus  ever  since  my 
childhood  I  have  had  the  greatest  desire  to  look  at 
corpses."  .  .  . 

"I  should  have  been  a  very  incomplete  creature  in 
the  eyes  of  all,  if  there  had  not  existed  in  me  a  broad 
conception  of  the  nature  of  all  things  and  that  forget- 
f ulness  of  the  personal,  without  which  the  most  gifted 


Personality  49 

people  on  earth  and  in  every  branch  of  knowledge 
would  not  be  gifted.  "... 

"From  my  youth  up  my  inner  life  has  been  rich 
and  in  accordance  with  truth.  Nature  acted  keenly 
and  truly  upon  keen  organs:  it  has  given  me  a  firm, 
sensitive  heart  which  always  duly  put  life  into  all 
other  organs." 

Again:  "One. does  not  have  such  gifts  as  mine  for 
nothing:  they  have  to  be  paid  for!  My  keen  appre- 
hension, with  its  power  of  definition  and  analysis,  the 
great  sea  within  me,  my  accurately  adjusted,  great 
and  deep  connection  with  nature,  in  short,  the  light 
amount  of  insight  I  have  into  it,  which  nevertheless  is 
of  so  great  value — all  this  costs  me  a  good  deal.  What 
pangs,  what  uneasiness,  what  privations  are  neces- 
sary to  make  anything  sprout,  and  how  I  have  to 
prepare  the  soil!" 

Rahel's  childlike  freedom  from  prejudice,  al- 
ready alluded  to,  shows  itself  most  clearly  in  the 
ethical  sphere,  where  she  revalues  current  pre- 
judices with  equal  boldness  and  thoroughness. 

She  well  knows 

"  that  the  need  of  morality  continues,  but  also  that  the 
conceptions  of  morality  cannot  remain  unaltered.  .  .  . 
The  present  age  is  sick  with  such  old  imaginings.  .  .  . 
All  existence  is  progressive,  gains  unceasingly  in  in- 
tensive vision;  in  this  way  earthly  life  is  raised  and 
that  life  which  falls  outside  its  bounds.  The  more 
insight  we  obtain,  the  more  we  shall  come  into  har- 
mony with  life  itself.  .  .  .  Life  is  not  a  dead 

4 


50  Rahel  Varnhagen 

repetition  but  a  development  to  insight  and  through 
insight.  ..." 

But  Rahel  sees  that  this  development  is  just  what 
is  least  of  all  permitted  in  the  sphere  of  morals. 
And  thus  existence  is  split  into  two  parts,  since 
one  does  not  with  an  easy  conscience  commit  the 
actions,  the  so-called  "crimes,"  to  which  one  is 
driven  by  development. 

"We  ought  to  submit  at  once  to  being  called 
'  wicked '  and  taken  to  task,  and  yet  we  poor  wretches 
go  on  with  our  little  morals  and  our  little  laws! 
Sick  Europeans  I  always  call  us  in  my  own  mind. ..." 

One  of  Rahel's  new  ethical  ideas  was  that  per- 
sonal liberty  involved  the  right  to  end  one's  life 
when  one  wished  to  suffer  no  longer.  Against  the 
talk  of  self-conquest  and  patience  in  suffering 
Rahel  breaks  out: 

"  Yet  we  cannot  suppress  our  nerves  and  fibres,  nor 
our  wishes;  are  these  last  alone  to  be  unholy?  Ought 
we  not  to  begin  to  regard  them  with  the  same  pious 
awe  as  other  works  of  nature,  nay,  as  expressions  of 
the  deep  craving  within  us  to  attain  the  right?  I 
know  that  there  exists  only  one  intolerable  evil ;  when 
one  has  not  satisfied  this  need  and  one's  conscience 
is  therefore  diseased." 

During  the  last  year  of  his  life  Heinrich  Kleist 


Personality  51 

often  visited  Rahel,  who  suffered  in  his  sufferings. 
After  his  suicide  Rahel  disclosed  already  the  most 
highly  developed  modern  views  of  such  a  "free 
death"  (Freitod),  to  use  F.  Mauthner's  new  word 
for  our  new  conception  of  this  act.  Rahel  re- 
joices that  her  friend  "did  not  prefer  the  unworthy 
part,"  and  she  knows  that  her  understanding  of 
him  is  now  the  only  way  in  which  she  can  honour 
his  memory. 

"I  cannot  bear  that  the  unfortunate  should  drain 
their  sufferings  to  the  dregs.  ...  Is  every  kind 
of  misfortune  to  be  allowed  to  fall  on  me?  Is  any 
wretched  fever  permitted  to  kill  me,  any  block  of 
wood,  any  roof-tile,  any  piece  of  clumsiness,  but  not 
myself?  ....  Courage  it  is  and  nothing  else.  Who 
would  not  leave  a  worn-out,  hopeless  life,  if  he  did  not 
dread  the  dark  possibilities  still  more?  Our  liberation 
from  what  is  desirable  is  already  accomplished  by  the 
course  of  the  world. " 

But  voluntary  death  should  be  the  conscious 
choice  of  a  personality,  not  a  precipitate  act, 
Rahel  thinks.  She  knows  that  only  through  the 
former  do  our  so-called  crimes  become  moral 
acts.  Thus  she,  the  worshipper  of  truth,  can  say: 
"Lying  is  fair,  when  we  choose  it,  and  an  im- 
portant item  in  our  liberty;  but  degrading,  when 
we  are  driven  to  it. "  She  can  say,  in  speaking  of 


52  Rahel  Varnhagen 

a  highly  developed  person:  "He  is  so  far  in  ad- 
vance with  his  ideas  that  it  can  no  longer  be  a 
question  of  whether  he  is  good  or  not  good :  this  lies 
far  beneath  him. " 

She  knows  that  there  exists  a  first  innocence 
which  knows  nothing  of  evil;  a  second,  which  has 
reached  the  other  side  of  good  and  evil,  and  she 
says:  "Innocence  is  beautiful;  virtue  is  a  plaster, 
a  scar,  an  operation. "  She  knows  how  little  this 
kind  of  virtue  is  worth:  "People  are  all  'good' 
but  they  are  of  no  use  for  anything. " 

She  knows  that  personal  morality  is  the  most 
responsible.  She  expresses  a  thought  which  is  in 
unison  with  one  of  George  Eliot's:  "Our  actions 
are  the  children  of  our  minds.  .  .  .  However  they 
may  turn  out,  we  must  put  up  with  them;  they 
have  so  independent  a  life  that  they  are  able  to  kill 
us.  ...  They  have  children  in  their  turn  and 
become  a  whole  race. " 

But  while  George  Eliot  uses  the  most  serious 
ethical  idea  of  the  new  age  in  order  to  inculate  the 
old  morality,  Rahel  has  the  courage  to  set  aside 
the  latter  on  important  points. 

It  results  from  what  has  been  said  here  that 
Rahel  may  more  rightly  be  called  a  pre-Nietzschian 
than  a  romanticist.  Like  Nietzsche  she  practises 


Personality  53 

consideration  for  others,  loyalty  to  duty,  self- 
discipline,  but  like  him  she  demands  a  revaluation 
of  just  those  virtues  which  she  practises,  since 
each  has  found  by  personal  experience  what 
dangers  to  a  fully  human  existence  these  virtues 
may  involve. 

A  virtue,  says  Rahel,  may  be  a  much  poorer 
thing  than  a  passion,  and  "fulfilment  of  duty  is 
often  nothing  else  than  a  form  of  punctiliousness 
and  officiousness ! "  She  abhors  the  doctrine  that 
patience  in  suffering  is  an  unconditional  virtue. 
Courageously  to  grasp  what  one's  nature  passion- 
ately demands  was  to  her  a  greater  virtue,  and 
she  underlines,  with  the  fullest  agreement, 
Goethe's  words:  "To  be  just  in  all  things  is  to 
destroy  one's  own  ego.". 

Rahel  was  too  honest  to  believe  that  we  can  love 
others  as  ourselves  except  in  the  case  of  a  very 
great  and  rare  feeling.  And  she  knew  that  her 
own  propensity  for  putting  others  higher  than 
herself  was  a  weakness,  not  a  virtue. 

"Through  my  too  great  consideration, "  says  Rahel, 
"I  therefore  am  really  destroying  myself,  who,  strong 
in  many  ways,  was  intended  for  other  things  by  care- 
lessly prodigal  nature.  So  it  is!  Thus  I  must  con- 
tinue to  die:  I  have  already  died  many  times.  ..." 


54  Rahel  Varnhagen 

In  connection  with  these  words  she  makes  the  remark 
that  she  knows  "something  of  the  eagle's  nature"  is 
indispensable  for  living  one's  life,  but  that  she 
unfortunately  lacks  this  kind  of  nature. 

When  Rahel  accuses  herself  of  exaggerated  con- 
sideration for  others,  which  prevents  her  from 
living,  in  the  full  sense  of  the  word,  we  must 
remember  that  she  always  lays  stress  on  her  un- 
qualified courage  in  the  domain  of  ideas  and 
opinions.  For  no  one's  love  will  she  ever  sacri- 
fice her  "truer  conviction,"  she  says.  And,  as 
F.  Schlegel  said  of  her,  speaking  of  her  holding 
aloof  from  the  numerous  "brotherhoods"  of  the 
time,  she  was  "far  too  eminent  a  personality" 
to  be  able  to  accept  the  slightest  restriction  of 
her  mental  freedom. 

When  she  accuses  herself  of  cowardice,  it  is  thus 
exclusively  in  the  sense  that  she  has  left  her  per- 
sonal demands  of  life  unsatisfied  in  cases  where 
their  satisfaction  would  have  involved  a  want  of 
consideration  for  others  or  for  the  accepted 
morality. 

In  one  respect  the  ethical  ideals  of  Goethe,  of 
the  romanticists,  of  Rahel,  and  of  Nietzsche  are  in 
complete  agreement:  in  the  feeling  that  genuine 
morality  first  appears  when  one  has  found  one's 


Personality  55 

own  essential  nature  and  acquired  a  good  con- 
science of  living  according  to  this  essential  nature. 
But  while  the  romanticists  permitted  a  "living  out 
one's  life,"  like  certain  disciples  of  Nietzsche  in 
our  time — that  is  to  say,  where  not  the  essential 
but  the  accidental  is  the  motive  force — Rahel,  like 
Goethe,  like  Nietzsche,  was  convinced  of  the  im- 
portance of  making  one's  choice  between  essenti- 
ality and  what  is  only  coarseness  or  caprice, 
accident  or  fashion,  among  our  inclinations.  Thus, 
for  instance,  Rahel,  like  Goethe,  disapproved  of 
the  romantic  trifling  with  marriage,  the  disso- 
lution of  which  Goethe  thought  justified  when 
genuine  feeling  demanded  it,  but  not  on  account  of 
fashionable  tendencies  in  sentiment,  tendencies  in 
which  seriousness  was  absent  even  from  passion.1 
But,  far  more  positively  than  Goethe,  Rahel  at 

1  Moral  fanatics  now  make  use  of  some  words  of  Goethe's  on 
the  sanctity  of  marriage — words  which  were  occasioned  by  the 
frivolous  divorces  of  the  time — to  represent  him  as  a  guardian  of 
the  sanctity  of  marriage.  That  he  dedicated  the  deepest  feeling 
of  his  life  to  a  married  woman  and  could  only  decide  after  a  very 
long  time  to  legalise  his  own  "free  love"  are  facts,  however,  which 
ought  to  free  Goethe  from  the  suspicion  of  having  seen  in  mar- 
riage the  sole  criterion  of  erotic  morality,  unless  we  would  assert 
that  his  life  and  his  teaching  were  in  direct  opposition  to  each 
other!  But  he  who  demanded  that  every  function  should  be  per- 
formed seriously,  regarded  the  function  of  marriage  as  serious, 
and  one  for  which  he  himself,  according  to  his  own  words,  was 
unsuited  and  therefore  unwilling  to  undertake. 


56  Rahel  Varnhagen 

all  periods  of  her  life  maintains  the  freedom  of 
love,  and  the  fact  that  the  romanticists,  and 
afterwards  Young  Germany,  do  the  same  has 
nothing  to  do  with  her  opinions  in  this  respect. 
She,  like  Rousseau,  like  Goethe,  like  the  romanti- 
cists, like  Young  Germany,  draws  her  erotic 
views  from  her  own  observation,  from  her  own 
soul  and  its  power  of  loving  personally  and  pas- 
sionately: none  of  them  is  the  others'  teacher, 
though  the  spirit  of  the  age  may  give  courage  to 
acknowledge  these  views  and  to  act  according  to 
them. 

At  every  stage  of  her  life  Rahel  asserts  what  I 
would  call  the  wisdom  of  the  heart,  assuming  that 
one  really  follows  one's  heart  and  does  not  create 
any  of  those  "simulacra,"  the  paltriness  of  which 
brings  love's  freedom  into  disrepute. 

"The  heart  is  entirely  in  darkness,  entirely  alone, 
one  might  say,  and  it  alone  knows  everything  best. 
Only  by  looking  into  it  can  one  gain  real  insight,  since 
none  of  the  confused  lights  of  the  world  penetrate  there 
and  since  the  heart,  so  to  speak,  takes  its  standard 
from  another  world ;  it  has  a  yes  or  a  no,  nothing  else. " 

"The  more  I  see  and  meditate  upon  the  strivings  of 
this  world,  the  more  insane  it  appears  to  me  day  by 
day  not  to  live  according  to  one's  inmost  heart.  To 
do  so  has  such  a  bad  name,  because  simulacra  of  it  are 


Personality  57 

in  circulation.  .  .  .  But  pure  as  the  seed-leaf  of 
an  almond  is  the  inmost,  true  desire :  what  is  sensitive 
is  also  holy!" 

With  Rahel  as  with  the  romanticists,  Schleier- 
macher  above  all,  the  demand  for  love's  freedom 
is  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  demand  for 
individualism,  for  originality  in  every  manifesta- 
tion of  life,  above  all  those  in  which  the  person- 
ality reaches  its  highest  expression:  love,  belief, 
creation.  Rahel  insists  that  only  when  a  person 
follows  his  nature's  inmost  demands  is  he  true  to 
himself,  and  only  when  he  is  true  to  himself  is  he 
moral.  She  consistently  applies  this  conviction 
in  her  judgment  of  people  who  in  their  erotic  re- 
lations thus  live  according  to  their  hearts.  One 
of  her  female  friends  declared  that  nobody  under- 
stood everything  in  the  same  degree  as  Rahel. 
But  this  reservation  must  be  added:  where  she 
met  with  nature  and  truth.  The  artificial  and 
false  found  in  her  an  incorruptible  judge. 

Those  natures  that  are  most  readily  charac- 
terised by  calling  them  pagan  Hellenic,  won 
Rahel's  unqualified  love.  Pauline  Wiesel,  who 
enraptured  men  as  the  most  perfect  revelation 
of  Aphrodite,  was  and  remained  Rahel's  dearest 


58  Rahel  Varnhagen 

woman  friend  on  account  of  the  complete  and 
naive  frankness  with  which  she  lived  in  accordance 
with  her  pagan  nature.  When  Pauline  left  her 
husband,  Councillor  Wiesel,  Rahel  gave  her  com- 
plete approval;  her  "strong  heart  was  not  made 
to  suffer,"  Rahel  wrote.  As  the  mistress  of  Prince 
Louis  Ferdinand,  and  of  many  others,  Pauline 
showed  such  inconstancy  in  her  love,  combined 
with  such  innocence,  such  ease  of  conscience,  and 
such  kindness,  that  she  appeared  like  a  Philine 
brought  to  life.  The  strength  and  genuineness  of 
her  nature  inspired  in  Rahel  not  only  unalterable 
devotion,  but  admiration. 

Pauline's  Greek,  or  childlike,  or  godlike, 
naivete  in  the  question  of  love's  freedom,  a  right 
that  appeared  to  her  as  incontestable  as  it  did  to 
the  gods  of  Olympus,  was  as  unlike  Rahel's  own 
conduct  of  life  as  possible.  But  Pauline,  in 
Rahel's  opinion,  had  thus  led  a  more  fully  human 
existence  than  Rahel  herself.  Indeed,  she  com- 
pares Pauline  with  herself:  "Nature  has  dealt 
largely  with  us  both.  .  .  .  We  are  designed  to 
witness  the  truth  in  this  world.  ..."  And 
Rahel  complains  that  she  herself  has  only  wit- 
nessed the  truth  in  the  realm  of  thought,  while 
Pauline  has  had  the  courage  and  the  good  fortune 


Personality  59 

to  be  true  in  action  also  to  her  inmost  nature. 
Herself  married  at  the  time,  Rahel  gave  the  follow- 
ing unqualified  expression  of  her  sympathy  for 
Pauline  Wiesel:  "She  saw  what  I  saw,  understood 
what  I  understood;  we  laughed,  observed,  ad- 
mired, and  despised  in  common.  ..."  She  had  a 
feeling  for  "the  confirming  and  understanding 
existence  in  another. "  And  when  she  seemed  de- 
void of  feeling,  it  was,  says  Rahel,  "because  she, 
like  myself,  suffered  from  too  deep  a  sympathy. 
She  and  I,"  Rahel  continues,  "could  be  agitated 
like  no  one  else."  She  was  an  experimental, 
warlike,  "light-hearted,  or  rather  light-lived 
nature";  "/  never  found  any  one  deeper,  truer,  or 
dearer.1"  Rahel  not  only  felt  that  she  and  Pau- 
line both  belonged  in  an  exceptional  degree  to 
"great,  dark,  bright  Nature,  who  produces  life 
after  life";  she  even  thinks  that  "nature  intended 
to  make  one  being  of  us,  but  she  had  to  make  two. " 
And,  therefore,  Rahel  adds,  in  one  of  her  offhand 
utterances,  which  open  up  an  infinite  psycho- 
logical perspective — "therefore  she  acts  forme," 
that  is,  in  those  things  where  Rahel  herself  has  not 
had  the  courage  and  good  fortune,  while  perhaps 
Pauline  felt  that  Rahel  cultivated  certain  other 
qualities  on  Pauline's  behalf! 


60  Rahel  Varnhagen 

Varnhagen,  who  felt  hurt  on  Rahel' s  behalf  by 
this  comparison  of  herself  with  Pauline  Wiesel, 
insists  that  the  latter  was  a  double  nature,  while 
Rahel's  extraordinary  power  and  charm  depended 
on  the  perfect  unity  of  her  nature.  And  in  truth 
Rahel's  unity  is  of  a  kind  rarely  met  with :  genius, 
disposition,  instincts,  co-operate  and  strengthen 
each  other,  instead  of  being  opposed  to  each  other, 
as  is  usually  the  case.  But  Rahel  herself  so  often 
laid  stress  on  her  dissatisfaction  with  the  want  of 
harmony  between  her  will  and  her  courage  for  ac- 
tion, that  we  must  take  her  seriously  and  not  praise 
what  she  herself  called  her  weakness:  that  she  did 
not  dare  what,  in  accordance  with  her  inmost 
nature,  with  the  approval  of  her  conscience,  she 
•wished.  She  knows  that  it  is  often  "one's  better 
knowledge"  that  demands  what  society  calls 
"sin";  that  it  may  be  a  greater  sin  to  allow  life's 
possibilities  of  happiness  to  escape  one  or  patiently 
to  drag  along  the  mistakes  of  one's  life. 

It  is  no  ascetic  or  Christian  conviction  that 
hinders  Rahel:  it  is  the  inborn  resignation  in  her 
blood,  and  in  her  race;  it  is  her  father's  tyranny, 
her  physical  weakness,  the  knowledge  of  her  lack 
of  charm — Rahel  thought  her  appearance  insigni- 
ficant and  quite  devoid  of  attraction — that  to- 


Personality  61 

gether  break  down  her  vital  courage.  And  when 
once  this  is  crushed,  it  is  no  more  capable  of  flight 
than  a  broken  wing.  Rahel,  like  all  great  natures, 
was  born  self-sacrificing  and  exacting.  That  she 
had  full  opportunity  for  satisfying  the  first-named 
instinct  never  consoled  her  for  the  great  debt  life 
owed  her.  For  she  was  convinced  that  her  whole 
nature  was  "willed  by  God,"  and  that  thus  her 
demands  were  as  holy  as  her  desire  of  self-sacrifice. 

Pauline  Wiesel  is  certainly  the  most  decisive 
evidence  of  Rahel's  attitude  to  love's  freedom,  but 
there  are  many  other  examples.  Among  them 
the  Bohemian,  Countess  Josephine  Pachta,  whose 
blonde  beauty  and  brisk  amiability  made  her  seem 
like  a  kindly  force  of  nature,  a  sunny  child  of  the 
woods.  This  friend  became  even  dearer  to  Rahel 
when  she  threw  away  her  brilliant  external  posi- 
tion to  follow  Meinert,  the  object  of  the  love  which 
thus  made  her  sacrifice  position  and  reputation. 
When  Rahel  is  summing  up  the  most  significant 
impressions  she'has  received  from  women,  she  calls 
Josephine  Pachta  the  greatest  female  character 
she  has  known,  since  nothing  could  restrain  her 
from  acting  according  to  her  inmost  nature. 

When    Dorothea    Mendelssohn    was   separated 


62  Rah  el  Varnhagen 

from  her  husband  and  lived  for  a  number  of  years, 
before  they  could  be  legally  united,  in  a  free  re- 
lationship with  F.  Schlegel,  Rahel  stood  faithfully 
by  them.  A  fourth  of  Rahel's  friends,  the  actress 
Augusta  Brede,  lived  in  a  free  relationship  with 
Count  Bentheim.  Rahel  not  only  approved  of  her 
friend's  conduct  but  stayed  with  her  during  her 
visit  to  Prague. 

But  on  the  other  hand  Rahel  could  not  reconcile 
herself  to  the  erotic-aesthetic  flirtations  of  Henri- 
ette  Herz,  which  never  overstepped  the  bounds 
of  "virtue,"  but  exhibited  just  that  kind  of 
"simulacrum"  which  was  antipathetic  to  Rahel 
while  she  declares,  and  proves  in  her  friendships, 
that  "I  am  indescribably  fond  of  genuine  frivolity ! " 

Among  men  also  Rahel  admired  natures  of  the 
same  kind  as  Pauline  Wiesel's.  Her  favourites 
were,  for  instance,  Prince  Louis  Ferdinand1  and 
Gentz.  The  former  visited  Rahel's  garret  to  find 
a  sympathetic,  consoling  friend,  whose  friendship 
appeared  to  him  "much  sweeter  than  anything 

T  The  erotic  colour  given  to  Rahel's  relations  with  the  prince 
by  Fanny  Lewald,  in  her  novel  Prince  Louis  Ferdinand,  is  entirely 
fanciful  and  without  any  foundation  in  fact.  Rahel  herself  calls 
the  relationship  "almost  entirely  impersonal."  It  was  to  Rahel 
he  complained  of  his  inconstant  mistress,  Pauline  Wiesel,  and 
Rahel  had  the  thankless  task  of  trying  to  put  matters  straight 
between  them. 


Personality  63 

else. ' '  Rahel  perceived  his  ' '  disorderliness ' '  while 
at  the  same  time  she  loved  his  exceptional  soul 
and  kept  her  promise  of  giving  him  direct  "gar- 
ret-truths" when  he  required  them.  Rahel  la- 
mented that  their  correspondence  was  lost,  for 
it  did  credit  to  both :  to  her  by  the  perfect  frank- 
ness with  which  she  told  the  prince  home-truths, 
to  him  by  the  generosity  with  which  he  received 
them,  feeling  that  the  "little  one,"  as  he  called 
her,  always  appealed  to  what  was  finest  in  his 
soul  against  his  lower  nature. 

With  regard  to  Gentz  Rahel  shows  the  same 
clear  perception  of  his  many  faults  and  the  same 
predilection  for  his  inmost  personality. 

In  this  statesman  and  man  of  the  world,  so 
differently  judged,  usually  condemned,  Rahel  had 
discovered  a  genuine  "child's  mind"  with  "the 
untroubled,  pure  truthfulness  that  produces  last- 
ing naivete."  It  was  this  disposition  that  Rahel 
loved  unalterably  in  this  man,  who  was  wanting  in 
character  just  because  he  was  like  a  child;  a  care- 
less creature  of  the  moment,  who  showed  all  his 
weaknesses  with  the  most  perfect  frankness.  Wo- 
men excused  them  on  account  of  his  charming 
manners,  men  on  account  of  his  rich  gifts,  among 
which  was  his  tactful  way  of  making  other  people 


64  Rahel  Varnhagen 

appear  to  advantage.  Thus,  for  example,  he 
would  only  take  up  the  thread  of  conversation 
after  an  interval  of  silence  and  hesitation  and 
modest  attempts  to  get  a  word  in,  and  then,  as 
one  of  the  most  brilliant  conversationalists  of  his 
time,  would  spin  it  farther,  fine  as  silk  and  varied 
in  colour,  as  no  one  else  could.  Rahel,  too,  for- 
gave him  on  account  of  this  quality,  which  one 
may  call  as  one  pleases  either  lack  of  conscience,  or 
freedom  of  conscience,  or  ease  of  conscience ! 

Rahel  was  to  Gentz,  as  to  Prince  Louis,  a  mother 
confessor,  a  consoler,  an  oracle.  He  has  the  same 
profound  understanding  of  her  nature  as  she  of  his. 
Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  both  than  their 
letters  at  the  time  when  Gentz,  late  in  life,  fell  in 
love  with  the  dancer  Fanny  Elsler  with  a  young 
man's  fervour.  Rahel  congratulated  him  in  the 
warmest  words  on  being  still  capable  of  such  fine 
feelings  at  his  age !  While  others  had  nothing  but 
frivolous  raillery  for  Gentz's  passion,  Rahel  saw  so 
deeply  into  his  nature  that  she  compared  his  feel- 
ing with  her  own  for  a  child,  that  had  proved  her 
still  to  be  possessed  of  "  ein  Liebherz,"  capable  of 
all  the  pangs  and  joys  of  love.  It  throws  light  on 
them  both  when  Gentz  writes  that  Rahel  was  the 
only  one  to  whom  he  dared  to  confess  the  feeling 


Personality  65 

which  from  an  old  man  had  made  him  young 
again,  since  she  alone  was  deep  enough  to  see  in  it 
the  proof  "that  he  had  preserved  within  himself 
a  pure  and  real  humanity."  And  among  the 
"floods  of  blessings"  for  his  "paradisiacal  letters, " 
which  flow  from  Rahel's  heart  to  his,  we  find  the 
words,  that  in  the  eternal  youth  of  feeling,  above 
all  in  the  power  of  love,  unvanquished  even  by 
years,  lies  the  strongest  proof  of  immortality: 
"Well  formed  hearts  can  always  be  in  love  and  al- 
ways wish  to  be. "  This  is  Rahel's  final  word  on 
the  subject  of  the  love  of  Gentz's  old  age.  And 
when  Fanny  Elsler  came  to  Berlin,  Rahel  treated 
the  young  dancer,  who  was  a  mistress  of  the  art 
Rahel  so  much  admired,  as  a  daughter. 

Whether  a  love  is  called  by  the  world  unreason- 
able or  reasonable,  immoral  or  moral,  unhappy 
or  happy,  matters  nothing  to  Rahel  in  compari- 
son with  the  conviction  which  she  expresses  some- 
what in  these  words :  that  loving  is  the  state  of  life 
that  makes  our  days  rich,  bright,  and  full  of  mean- 
ing; that  only  through  love  does  one  learn  to  know 
one's  own  existence;  nay,  that  love  is  to  such  an 
extent  the  kernel  of  life  that  even  a  semblance  of 
it  is  capable  of  awaking  our  sympathy. 

Some    one    censured    in    Rahel's    presence    a 


66  Rahel  Varnhagen 

woman  who  had  begged  a  man  for  his  love,  even 
calling  it  a  disgrace.  Rahel  exclaimed : "  It  was  stu- 
pid, since  it  could  do  no  good, but  why  disgraceful?  " 
Rahel  continued  the  conversation  and  swore  by 
Heaven  that  never  in  her  life  had  she  controlled  a 
weakness.  And  how  could  one  do  so?  she  asks. 
One's  actions  one  can  control,  but  one's  heart, 
"which  is  soft,  which  is  of  flesh  and  blood,  how  could 
one  turn  it  into  brass?  "  How  deeply  the  subject  af- 
fected Rahel  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  immediately 
after  this  conversation  she  had  an  attack  of  fever! 
Another  pagan  nature  for  whom  Rahel  cher- 
ished great  affection  was  Heine.  He  had  some  of 
the  faults  that  Rahel  particularly  loved;  some  of 
the  qualities  she  valued  highly,  but  also  that  ruth- 
less "ego-morality"  which  she  only  forgave  when 
— as  in  Pauline  Wiesel  and  Gentz — it  was  com- 
bined with  a  genuine  naivete.  Heine  lacked  this, 
for  he  suffered  from  an  ambition  in  which  Rahel 
saw  the  cause  of  his  want  of  balance,  insincerity, 
vanity,  and  capriciousness.  Rahel  finely  sums  up 
her  own  highest  ethical  commandment,  the  com- 
mandment of  individualism,  in  a  single  word: 
"Heine must  become  'real'."1  Since  he  possessed 

1  Rahel  borrows  the  word  "real"  (wesentlich)  from  Angelas 
Silesius's  verse:     "  Mensch,  werde  wesentlich, "  etc. 


Personality  67 

no  depth  or  seriousness,  he  lacked  coherence  in 
his  personality  and  a  synthetic  view  of  exist- 
ence, and  this  made  Rahel  uneasy.  In  spite  of 
these  defects,  which,  owing  to  Rahel's  frankness, 
caused  occasional  periods  of  coolness  in  their 
friendship,  Heine  remained  her  tenderly  cher- 
ished favourite,  whom  she  believed  in,  whom  she 
consoled,  and  of  whose  fate  she  felt  an  anxious 
foreboding. 

From  all  this  we  may  conclude  that  Rahel 
carried  out  her  first  and  greatest  demand  on  others 
as  on  herself,  "to  be  true  and  upright,"  while  at 
the  same  time  she  insisted  that  this  honesty  does 
not  exclude,  but  on  the  contrary  necessitates,  that 
self-cultivation  without  which  no  one  arrives  at 
his  essential  nature.  Like  Goethe,  she  knows 
that  "man  is  a  work  of  art  .  .  .  material,  artist, 
and  workshop  are  within  ourselves.  How  beauti- 
ful each  success  seems  to  us,  how  hard  the  re- 
verse!" She  regarded  the  years  of  one's  youth  as 
"the  most  virtuous,  most  beautiful,  and  easiest 
set  on  fire, "  and  therefore  she  forgave  youth  "no- 
thing bad,  but  a  good  many  follies."  She  thinks 
older  people  are  profoundly  unjust  towards  youth, 
in  expecting  it  to  be  wise  without  having  yet  had 
the  opportunity  of  "distilling  the  essence  from  the 


68  Rahel  Varnhagen 

tree  of  life.'"  For  Rahel  says  in  another  place: 
"Experiences  are  crude;  their  value  is  only  that  to 
which  we  succeed  in  ennobling  them."  And  be- 
sides, what  is  the  rationality  of  the  elders?  Sel- 
dom wisdom,  Rahel  thinks  with  perfect  justice, 
but  "usually  only  want  of  courage. " 

It  was,  moreover,  her  experience  that,  however 
a  person  may  conduct  himself,  he  nevertheless  at 
every  stage  of  his  life  acts  in  the  last  resort  accord- 
ing to  his  character;  that  is  to  say,  Rahel  explains, 
according  to  the  sum  and  substance  of  his  qual- 
ity ;  human  beings  like  the  air,  move  according  to 
eternal  laws.  And  to  "have  character"  means 
to  her  merely  to  have  courage,  since  this  sets 
the  other  capabilities  in  motion  towards  their 
goal.  Thus,  while  every  one  else  called  a  Gentz 
or  a  Pauline  Wiesel  deficient  in  character,  to 
Rahel  they  were  characters ;  their  courage  to  act 
according  to  the  sum  and  substance  of  their 
qualities  rendered  them,  as  others  called  it,  faith- 
less, untrustworthy,  weak,  but  as  Rahel  called 
it,  sincere.  Among  the  majority  she  found  weak- 
nesses equally  plentiful,  but  with  a  good  deal  less 
honesty ! 

It  was   honesty   and   naturalness   that   Rahel 


Personality  69 

looked  for  in  vain  in  European  sexual  morality; 
and  it  was  on  account  of  these  deficiencies  that  she 
demanded  reforms  so  thoroughgoing  that  even 
to-day  they  are  called  "destructive  of  society." 

Freedom  for  love — which  is  morality — but  war 
against  unchastity — which  is  sexual  relation  with- 
out love — that  is  Rahel's  fundamental  idea,  from 
her  young  days  in  her  lonely  garret  till  the  late 
phase  of  her  life,  when  George  Sand  is  already 
appearing  like  a  streak  of  fire  on  the  horizon. 

Rahel's  sense  of  liberty,  sense  of  truth,  and  sense 
of  beauty  are  revolted  in  an  equal  degree  by  the 
sexual  morality  that  is  protected  by  society. 
Marriage  is  to  Rahel  an  oppression,  comparable 
with  other  forms  of  compulsion;  an  oppression 
that  has  given  rise  to  the  dual  standard  of  male 
and  female  sexual  morality  and  the  compulsory 
fidelity  in  which  the  social  lie  triumphs.  Rahel 
touches  upon  this  subject  sometimes  seriously, 
sometimes  in  irony. 

"It  is  hard  that  in  Europe  men  and  women  should 
form  two  different  nations:  one  moral,  the  other  not. 
This  will  never  answer — without  dissimulation,  and 
chivalry  was  one  form  of  dissimulation.  These  few 
words  are  very  true;  they  summarise  much  unhappi- 
ness  and  much  evil.  Some  day  a  book  will  be  written 
about  this." 


70  Rahel  Varnhagen 

"I  now  perceive  that  human  beings  are  so  wicked, 
that  they  are  obliged  to  make  their  declaration  d' amour 
before  a  priest  and  an  official.  They  know  one 
another!" 

"Is  not  an  intimacy  without  charm  or  transport 
more  indecent  than  ecstasy  of  what  kind  soever?  Is 
not  a  state  of  things  in  which  truth,  amenity,  and 
innocence  are  impossible,  to  be  rejected  for  these 
reasons  alone?" 

On  another  occasion  she  says  of  marriage:  "Away 
with  the  walls!  Away  with  the  ruins  of  them!  Let 
this  pernicious  custom  be  levelled  with  the  ground,  and 
then  shall  flourish  everything  that  has  life  in  it — a 
whole  vegetation ! " 

She  sums  up  the  stains  upon  Europe  in  these  words : 
"Slavery,  war,  marriage — and  they  go  on  wondering 
and  patching  and  mending!" 

Since  the  highest  personal  morality  consists  in 
being  true,  in  every  smallest  trifle  and  at  every 
moment,  in  "always  proceeding  from  reality  and 
not  from  appearance,"  coercive  marriage  must  be 
the  great  social  lie  above  all  others! 

Rahel  asks:  "How  can  an  inclination  subsist 
without  charm?"  She  asks  why  people  do  not 
provide  themselves  with  a  legal,  external  guaran- 
tee for  their  relations  of  friendship,  private  or 
open,  instead  of  allowing  the  duration  of  these 
relationships  to  be  determined  by  their  feelings? 
And  on  the  objection  about  children  she  asks 


Personality  71 

whether  home  life  as  such  is  bound  to  be  sacred? 
Whether  the  children  really  can  only  be  protected 
by  remaining  in  their  home,  when  the  parents  are 
capable  of  physically  and  morally  torturing  them 
to  death  there? 

She  points  out  that  it  is  as  absurd  as  it  is  im- 
possible and  unreasonable  to  try  by  one's  love 
to  bind  and  restrict  a  human  being  in  any  action 
or  at  any  point  of  his  existence.  Only  those  mar- 
riages which  are  contracted  through  mutual  love, 
only  those  in  which  the  free  consent  of  both,  not  the 
right  of  either,  determines  the  union,  only  those 
in  which  full,  clear  truth  prevails,  does  Rahel  re- 
gard as  moral.  And  above  all,  behind  the  "closed 
doors"  of  matrimony  the  fullest  freedom  is  a 
necessity.  How  little  Rahel  believed  in  the  possi- 
bility of  such  freedom  and  truth  in  the  existing 
institution  of  marriage,  appears  from  her  ex- 
clamation that  those  who  are  already  married 
must  remain  so,  but  that  she  for  her  part  would 
never  be  willing  to  sanction  the  marriage  of  a  child 
of  hers.  ShS  scorns  "preconceived  opinions  de 
luxe"  of  all  kinds,  but  especially  those  which 
have  created  the  distinction  between  legitimate 
and  illegitimate  children,  and  she  would  level 
this  distinction  as  radically  as  those  who  are 


72  Rahel  Varnhagen 

striving  at  the  present  day  for  the  right  of  the 
mother. 

"Children  ought  only  to  have  mothers  and  to  bear 
their  name,  and  the  mothers  ought  to  be  in  possession 
of  the  authority  and  power  in  the  family :  so  nature 
ordains  it.  We  have  only  to  make  nature  more  moral ; 
to  act  in  opposition  to  her — even  as  regards  the  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  in  question — is  never  successful. 
Nature  is  terrible  in  this  respect,  that  a  woman  can 
be  misused  and  can  bear  children  against  her  incli- 
nation and  her  will.  This  great  injustice  must  be  re- 
dressed through  human  intervention  and  dispositions, 
but  it  shows  to  what  a  great  extent  the  child  belongs  to 
the  woman.  Jesus  had  only  a  mother.  For  every 
child  an  ideal  father  ought  to  be  appointed,  and  every 
mother  ought  to  be  considered  as  innocent  and  held 
in  as  high  honour  as  Mary. " 

It  is  characteristic  of  Rafael's  attitude  to  her  own 
sex  that  it  was  not  among  the  blameless  she,  who 
was  herself  perfectly  blameless,  found  her  closest 
friends.  And  it  is  not  from  her  own  sex  but 
from  men  that  the  most  discriminating  judgments 
of  Rahel  are  derived.  Rahel  herself  has  no  cause 
to  complain  of  a  woman  not  being  permitted  to 
think  or  to  utter  her  thoughts,  for  she  found 
listeners  both  eager  and  admiring  in  the  foremost 
men  of  her  time.  Rahel  uses  a  bad  argument  to 
defend  woman's  right  to  use  her  intellectual  powers, 


Personality  73 

when  she  asks  whether  Fichte's  works  would  have 
been  inferior  if  Frau  Fichte  had  written  them  ?  For 
this  question  could  only  carry  weight  if  it  were 
proved  that  Frau  Fichte — or  any  other  woman — 
actually  had  written  Fichte's  works.  Then  un- 
doubtedly men  would  have  been  as  willing  to 
acknowledge  that  woman's  force  of  thought  as 
they  acknowledged  that  of  Rahel  herself. 

Fortunately  it  is  not  with  such  weak  reasoning 
that  Rahel  elsewhere  defends  woman's  right  to 
make  use  of  her  intellectual  gifts;  to  secure  "room 
for  her  own  feet"  legally  and  socially;  to  be  res- 
cued from  having  to  occupy  herself  only  with 
trifles,  and,  in  an  intellectual  sense,  from  having  to 
be  "worn  away  by  her  husband's  or  son's  exist- 
ence"; from  being  forced,  through  her  husband's 
erotic  coarseness,  into  insincerity  and  coquetry; 
from  being  of  less  account  owing  to  her  bringing-up 
and  her  existence. 

Rahel  says  of  women:  "They  are  so  surprisingly 
feeble,  almost  imbecile  from  lack  of  coherence.  They 
lie,  too,  since  they  are  often  obliged  to,  and  since  the 
truth  demands  intelligence.  And  lying  bores  me  to 
death.  ..."  Again:  "I  know  women:  what  is 
noble  in  their  composition  keeps  together  stupidity  or 
madness.  ..."  In  a  third  place  she  speaks  of 
women's  "  clumsy,  terrible  stupidity  in  lying. " 


74  Rahel  Varnhagen 

That  women  nevertheless  even  at  that  time 
were  able  to  find  "room  for  their  own  feet, "  if  they 
only  had  a  strong  enough  will  to  do  so,  is  proved 
by  Rahel  herself.  Without  financial  independence, 
she  nevertheless,  when  only  in  her  twenties,  suc- 
ceeds in  reading,  corresponding,  travelling,  choos- 
ing her  friends,  and  forming  her  social  circle  with 
the  same  freedom  as  a  financially  independent 
woman  can  do  so  now.  If  Rahel,  after  her  father's 
death,  still  speaks  of  constraint,  it  is  only  in  the 
sense  that  unintelligent  and  indelicate  criticism, 
and  a  pretentious  and  irritable  family  circle  are 
always  a  constraint.  At  that  time  this  constraint 
was  only  exercised  by  the  family;  in  our  day  it  is 
still  exercised  by  the  family  and  by  societies  and 
other  forms  of  social  co-operation  as  well. 

From  every  well-thought-out  system  of  individ- 
ualism— and  Rahel's  was  as  thoroughly  thought 
out  as  it  was  instinctive — it  necessarily  results  that 
any  hindrance  to  the  use  of  his  powers  imposed  by 
society  upon  one  of  its  members  is  tyranny,  so 
long  as  the  exercise  of  his  powers  involve  no  inter- 
ference with  the  rights  of  others.  And  how  much 
more  true  is  this,  when  laws  and  prejudices  have 
placed  such  hindrances  in  the  way  of  half  mankind ! 
As  an  individualist,  therefore,  Rahel  is  a  "feminist " 


Personality  75 

with  all  her  heart  and  turns  her  irony  upon  those 
who,  on  account  of  preconceived  opinions  as  to 
woman's  nature,  seek  to  exclude  her  from  the  so- 
called  masculine  spheres  of  work  and  thought. 

"Has  it  been  proved  by  her  organisation  that  a 
woman  cannot  think  and  express  her  ideas?  If  such 
were  the  case,  it  would  nevertheless  be  her  duty  to 
renew  the  attempt  continually.  .  .  . 

"So  many  women  miss  their  true  vocation,  that  it 
can  hardly  make  much  difference  if  a  few  do  so  by 
writing." 

Rahel  reproaches  women — in  her  time  there 
was  occasion  for  it — with  humbly  excusing  them- 
selves when  they  ventured  to  write  a  book !  Why 
should  not  a  woman  write  books,  why  should  she 
not  study  at  the  universities,  if  she  has  "the 
intelligence  and  the  gifts  through  which  her  studies 
will  be  really  fruitful? "  Why  should  she  not  work 
at  the  sciences,  if  she  is  capable  of  doing  so?  asks 
Rahel  with  justice.  But  in  our  day  Rahel  might 
have  asked:  Why  must  a  woman  write  books, 
study,  practise  science — even  when  she  has  not 
"intelligence  and  gifts"?  How  Rahel,  who  ex- 
horted every  one  to  effect  his  own  education,  who 
thought  that  nature  intended  with  every  human 
being  to  produce  an  original,  not  a  "manufactured 


76  Rahel  Varnhagen 

article,"  would  have  abhorred  the  school  exami- 
nations and  university  courses  of  to-day,  the  fac- 
tory work  by  which  men  and  women  are  turned  out 
by  the  dozen! 

How  Rahel,  who  knew  that  the  liberation  of  our 
own  true  individuality  "costs  a  whole  life,  full  of 
effort,"  would  have  detested  present-day  parlia- 
mentarism and  societies,  administrations  and  com- 
mittees, where  the  effort  consists  in  suppressing 
the  personality  for  the  sake  of  the  so-called  result ! 
How  Rahel,  who  exclaims:  "One  spends  one's 
life  in  institutions — fritters  it  away!" — would 
have  detested  the  frittering-away  of  life  that  all 
such  modern  institutions  involve!  How  she  would 
have  detested  seeing  the  need  of  bread  driving 
women  together  with  men  in  the  great  herd,  which 
only  "desires  and  is  quieted  by  food"!  How  she 
would  have  detested  all  those  "women  of  the 
cause"  who  in  our  time  confirm  Rahel's  observa- 
tion "that  insignificant  people  with  little  spirit 
become  harder  with  years,  while  an  increasing  gen- 
tleness is  the  characteristic  of  the  notable  person 
and  of  the  mobile  spirit " !  How  Rahel  would  have 
abhorred  the  tyrannical  treatment  of  each  other's 
opinions,  the  cramping  narrow-mindedness,  the 
envious  jostling,  the  petty  importance  of  nobodies, 


Personality  77 

which  the  women's  cause  now  exhibits  every- 
where, since,  from  being  a  movement  for  liberty 
in  great  women's  souls,  like  Rahel's  own,  it  has 
become  a  movement  of  leagues  and  unions,  in 
which  the  small  souls  take  the  lead! 

It  was  in  the  performance  of  motherly  social 
functions — nursing  and  relief  of  distress — that 
Rahel  desired  to  find  "a  regular  occupation." 
But  no  one  would  have  been  unhappier  than 
Rahel  if  this  "occupation,"  as  is  the  case  with 
organised  co-operation,  had  fettered  the  freedom 
of  her  own  initiative  and  actions.  And  a  Rahel 
would  be  the  first  to  assert  now  that  there  are 
other  limitations  of  liberty  and  independence  than 
those  created  by  law  and  custom,  namely  those 
that  arise  from  fashions  and  tendencies  of  the  age, 
by  which  a  person  is  carried  away  from  his  deepest 
nature  and  loses  the  power  of  self -limitation  with- 
in his  real  sphere. 

How  Rahel  with  her  lucidity  of  thought  would 
have  exposed  the  modern  superstition  that  it  is  in 
outward  departments  of  work  that  woman  gives 
expression  to  her  human  "individuality,"  while 
a  mother  only  acts  as  a  sexual  creature!  How 
miserable  Rahel  would  have  found  the  modern 


78  Rahel  Varnhagen 


tendency  that  tries  to  turn  the  home  into  a  mere 
Sunday  treat,  and  motherhood  into  a  mere  pro- 
duction of  children !  How  profoundly  Rahel  sees, 
in  pointing  out  the  final  distinction  between  the 
essential  being  of  man  and  woman,  when  she  says 
that  nature — she  does  not  know  from  what  eco- 
nomy— ' '  keeps  woman  nearer  to  the  plant " ! 

This  "economy"  is  easily  understood;  it  is  be- 
cause the  tender  life  is  woman's  creation  and  be- 
cause that  life  requires  tranquillity  for  its  genesis 
and  growth;  because  powerful  instincts,  deep 
feelings,  sincere  relations  only  arise  where  calm 
and  warmth,  coherence  and  unity  are  to  be  found ; 
because  a  woman  taken  up  by  the  problems  of 
external  life,  tied  by  obligations  of  public  work, 
harassed  by  competition  or  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence, no  longer  possesses  the  psychological  quali- 
fications which  are  indispensable  in  order  that 
a  child's  soul  may  grow  in  peace  and  joy,  sur- 
rounded by  seriousness  and  affection;  because,  in 
other  words,  children  need  mothers,  not  only  for 
their  physical  birth,  but  for  their  human  bringing 
up. 

Rahel  hits  the  very  centre  of  the  spiritual  task  of 
motherhood  when  she  says  that,  if  she  had  a  child, 
she  would  help  it  to  learn  to  listen  to  its  own  in- 


Personality  79 

most  ego;  everything  else  she  would  sacrifice  to 
this.  To  be  successful  in  this,  says  Rahel,  is  the 
mother's  loftiest  task,  her  greatest  talent,  and 
those  who  do  not  fulfil  the  task,  who  do  not  pos- 
sess the  talent,  are  not  worthy  to  be  called  mothers, 
but  only  breeders  of  children.  That  a  number  of 
children,  Rahel  knew  this  only  too  well,  are 
ill-treated  within  the  family  fold;  furthermore, 
that  few  mothers  perform  their  high  office  well, 
all  this  Rahel  insists  upon,  without  its  misleading 
her  into  any  of  the  foolish  proposals  of  the  present 
day  for  remedying  the  evil. 

Far  from  believing  mothers  to  be  incapable  of 
improvement,  Rahel  would  redouble  their  power 
and  with  it  their  responsibility.  For  the  pro- 
gress or  ruin  of  humanity  depends,  in  Rahel's 
prophetic  view,  upon  the  capacity  of  the  mothers 
for  performing  their  task. 

I  have  elsewhere  described  Rahel's  own  deep 
feeling  of  motherliness,  the  feeling  which  made  it 
one  of  the  sorrows  of  her  life  that  she  herself  had 
never  had  a  child,  and  which  caused  her  to  find  in 
the  children  of  her  relatives  objects  upon  which 
she  could  lavish  her  stores  of  tenderness.1  And 
every  woman  who  has  what  Rahel  calls  "ein 

1  See  Chapter  III,  Love. 


8o  Rahel  Varnhagen 

Liebherz, "  knows  that  a  general  love  is  not  enough ; 
that  only  the  particular,  personal,  intimate  love 
brings  us  happiness.  Or,  as  Rahel  in  her  later 
years  expresses  it:  "The  life  of  our  heart  alone  is 
true  and  real.  I  knew  this,  even  when  I  was 
actually  a  child;  and,  triumph!  I  know  it 
still." 

But  a  nature  so  constituted  that  it  will  "only 
receive  and  only  give  from  the  heart"  becomes  in 
this  existence,  as  it  still  is,  a  tragic  figure.  And 
as  such  we  shall  find  Rahel  in  what  follows, 
according  to  her  own  unsurpassable  definition 
of  the  tragic. 

"Tragedy  is  something  which  we  are  quite  unable 
to  understand,  to  which  we  have  to  submit,  which  no 
prudence,  no  wisdom  can  do  away  with  or  avoid;  to 
which  our  inmost  nature  drives,  pulls,  entices,  and 
irresistibly  leads  us,  and  there  holds  us  fast;  when 
it  destroys  us,  we  are  left  with  the  question:  Why? 
Why  is  this  done  to  me,  why  was  7  made  to  this  end? — 
and  all  one's  mind  and  all  one's  strength  only  serves 
to  grasp,  to  feel  the  desolation  or  to  divert  one's  self 
thereat." 

To  sum  up,  I  would  maintain  that  Rahel,  like 
Fichte,  saw  "the  radical  evil"  in  inertness  and 
cowardice,  but  the  way  of  life  in  courage  and  will ; 


Personality  81 

courage  to  take  all  claims  and  all  vital  decisions 
in  perfect  seriousness,  will  to  put  one's  whole 
personality  into  every  situation  in  life  and  to 
bring  to  all  vital  questions  the  most  perfect 
honesty. 

But  this  makes  Rahel  in  her  ethics  just  what  I 
have  called  her:  a  pre-Nietzschian.  To  him  also 
courage,  veracity,  mental  rectitude  were  the  basis 
of  all  morality.  And  when  Rahel  speaks  of  feel- 
ing "wounded  in  her  nobility, "  or  thanks  God  that 
she  is  "born  noble,"  she  gives  the  word  the  same 
meaning  as  Nietzsche,  when  he  shows  that  the 
word  "noble"  originally  meant  in  Greek  one  who 
was  something,  who  had  a  firmly  united  reality, 
which  the  cowardly  and  untruthful  person  has  not. 
That  Rahel' s  train  of  thought  was  a  similar  one  is 
shown,  amongst  other  things,  by  her  connecting 
women's  "lack  of  coherence"  with  their  untruth- 
fulness. 

The  final  judgment  on  Rand's  individuality  is, 
then,  that  she  was  a  born  aristocrat,  who  neverthe- 
less, owing  to  her  origin  and  circumstances,  found 
herself  hindered  from  showing  the  world  her  whole 
nature  as  confidently  and  freely  as  she  had  wished, 
but  that  in  spite  of  this  she  remained,  at  every 
period  and  in  every  situation  of  her  life,  "Rahel 


82  Rahel  Varnhagen 

and  nothing  else."  And  one  who  can  truthfully 
bear  such  testimony  of  herself  has  a  right  to  be 
described  by  the  greater,  infinitely  misused  word: 
a  personality. 


CHAPTER  III 

LOVE 


IN  spite  of  Strindberg,  Weininger,  and  other  de- 
spisers  of  women,  our  time  has  witnessed  a  rapid 
increase  in  man's  appreciation  of  woman's  per- 
sonality. One  among  many  signs  of  this  is  that 
marriages  and  love  affairs  between  younger  men 
and  women  who  are  a  few  or  several  years  older 
than  themselves,  are  becoming  more  and  more 
numerous  in  our  time. 

Of  course  such  connections  have  always  oc- 
curred. But  formerly  they  were  due  in  some  cases 
to  the  man's  gratitude  for  help  or  appreciation, 
in  other  cases  to  calculation,  to  win  a  kingdom,  for 
instance,  an  inheritance,  or  an  appointment ;  some- 
times, finally,  they  were  the  result  of  the  charm 
certain  women  have  preserved  to  an  advanced 
age.  What  is  new  in  our  time  is  that  the  cause  is 
more  and  more  frequently  mutual  love.  Stendhal 

83 


84  Rahel  Varnhagen 

cites  Mme.  du  Deffand,  with  justice,  as  a  proof 
that  "/' 'amour  passion,"  which  Rahel  calls  "the 
new  European  love,"  may  arise  at  an  advanced 
age.  In  our  time  instances  might  be  multiplied. 
Love  more  and  more  frequently  resembles  that 
crocus  which  flowers  in  the  autumn  as  well  as 
in  the  spring.  And,  to  complete  the  simile,  the 
flower,  which  is  innocuous  in  spring,  is  said  to 
be  sometimes  dangerous  in  autumn. 

Nowadays  it  is  no  uncommon  thing  to  see  a 
man  who,  like  the  young  Spaniard  Mora  for 
Mile,  de  Lespinasse,  entertains  an  ardent  love 
for  a  woman  ten  years  older;  or  even,  like  the 
young  Italian  Rocca,  for  one  twenty  years  older 
than  himself.  Rocca  was  seized  by  this  feeling 
the  instant  Mme.  de  Stael  bent  over  the  litter  on 
which  the  wounded  youth  lay.  When  his  friends 
told  him  she  was  old  enough  to  be  his  mother,  he 
replied  that  that  was  one  reason  the  more  for  lov- 
ing her  and  that  he  would  love  her  so  devotedly 
that  she  would  end  by  marrying  him,  as  indeed  she 
did.  George  Sand,  the  most  wonderful  of  all 
womanly  natures — fiery  as  wine,  motherly  as 
milk,  healthy,  fertile,  and  rich  as  the  earth  she 
trod,  fascinating,  uncertain,  and  dangerous  as  the 
sea  which  witnessed  some  of  her  love-adventures — 


Love  85 

George  Sand  was  loved  by  younger  men,  as  well 
as  by  those  of  her  own  age  or  older.  Elizabeth 
Barrett  was  some  years  older  than  Robert  Brown- 
ing, a  difference  in  age  which  was  of  no  import- 
ance to  their  happiness.  Other  famous  women 
might  be  cited  in  this  connection;  I  will  confine 
myself  to  recalling  George  Eliot.  Her  marriage 
with  Mr.  Cross,  who  was  thirty  years  younger  than 
herself,  was  to  me,  and  to  many  others,  an  enigma, 
until  I  heard  an  explanation  from  one  who  knew 
the  circumstances.  The  ' '  marriage  of  conscience  " 
between  George  Eliot  and  G.  H.  Lewes,  who  could 
not  be  legally  divorced  from  the  wife  who  had  de- 
ceived him  for  years,  was  apparently  not  founded 
according  to  my  informant,  upon  true  erotic 
feeling  on  his  part,  but  only  upon  intellectual  sym- 
pathy and  devotion.  George  Eliot  had  never  her- 
self been  the  object  of  a  great  emotion,  an  emotion 
capable  of  extravagant  acts — in  other  words,  the 
emotion  every  true  woman  desires  to  have  met 
with  before  she  dies — until  she  found  it  in  the 
young  man  whom  she  married  at  the  age  of  sixty ! 

To  these  celebrated  women,  who  found  at  last 
in  a  younger  man  the  love  they  had  dreamt  of 
all  their  lives,  Rahel  also  belongs. 

Her  marriage  with  a  man  fourteen  years  younger 


86  Rahel  Varnhagen 

was  her  only  bold  experiment  in  life,  whereas  her 
views  on  erotic  questions  were  most  unprejudiced. 
George  Eliot,  on  the  other  hand,  expended  all  her 
courage  on  her  marriage  of  conscience,  and  not  the 
shadow  of  a  thought  of  reform  in  the  erotic  sphere 
is  to  be  found  in  her  books.  Renunciation,  sub- 
mission, sympathy,  fidelity  are  what  she  preaches. 
She  accomplished  the  task,  at  that  time  extremely 
important,  of  showing  that  the  evolutionary  view 
of  life  included  sufficiently  powerful  motives  to 
produce  all  the  old  Christian  virtues.  But  she 
never  examines  the  value  of  these  virtues  from  an 
evolutionary  point  of  view!  With  a  psychological 
intuition  comparable  only  with  Shakespeare's  she 
revealed  the  dramas  that  take  place  among  simple 
conditions  of  life  and  half -awakened  souls:  those 
of  children  and  of  the  people.  But  George  Eliot, 
in  spite  of  the  circumstances  of  her  own  life,  no 
more  extended  the  psychology  and  ethics  of  love 
and  marriage  than  our  even  more  gifted  Selma 
Lagerlof  has  done  so.  In  this  respect  the  im- 
portance of  George  Sand  has  been  incomparably 
greater  than  that  of  George  Eliot.  Mme.  de  Stael 
and  the  sisters  C.  and  E.  Bronte  have  told  us  in 
two  or  three  books  more  about  the  loving  heart  of 
woman  than  George  Eliot  in  all  her  works;  a  Mme. 


Love  87 

du  Deffand,  a  Mile,  de  Lespinasse,  a  Sister  Mari- 
ana, a  Rahel,  have  done  so  merely  in  a  few 
letters. 

In  Delphine  Mme.  de  Stael  attacked  indissoluble 
marriage ;  in  Corinne  she  presented  the  tragedy  of 
the  gifted  feminine  personality :  that  of  wounding 
her  husband's  prejudices  on  the  subject  of  "woman- 
liness" and  thus  weakening  the  erotic  attraction  of 
her  own  personality.  Rahel  herself  went  through 
the  latter  experience  with  Finckenstein  and  Ur- 
quijo,  she  expressed  even  before  Delphine  and  long 
before  George  Sand  ideas  as  rebellious  as  those 
of  either  French  authoress.  And  while  death  soon 
solved  what  was  problematical  in  Mme.  de  Stael's 
and  George  Eliot's  last  marriages,  the  union  of 
Rahel  and  Varnhagen  became  a  happy  omen  for 
those  ties  of  love  by  which  many  a  woman  of  the 
present  day  has  attained  the  erotic  consummation 
of  her  nature  when  already  advanced  in  years. 

Like  Mme.  de  Stael  and  George  Eliot,  Rahel 
had  already  given  her  great  emotion  to  another, 
and  thus  none  of  them  experiences  the  happiness 
of  loving  as  she  is  loved.  But  they  discover  that 
their  feminine  personality,  in  its  fully  developed, 
gifted  individuality,  is  capable  of  inspiring  a  great 


88  Rahel  Varnhagen 

love.  They  are  thus  notable  examples  of  the 
evolution  of  masculine  love,  which  Mme.  de  Stael 
despaired  of  in  Corinne. 

Rahel' s  three  love-stories  are  typical  of  the  three 
fundamental  forms  of  woman's  amatory  feelings: 
love  of  her  own  love,  love  of  the  man,  and  love  of 
the  man's  love.  They  may  pass  into  each  other 
in  a  thousand  delicate  transitions,  but  in  every 
woman's  love  one  of  these  forms  nevertheless 
predominates. 

Man's  love  has  at  present  only  two  funda- 
mental forms:  in  love  the  majority  of  men  love 
themselves,  only  a  minority  the  personality  of  the 
woman. 

And  yet  that  is  the  only  love  the  modern  woman 
wants. 

The  new  woman,  whose  victorious  advance  our 
time  is  witnessing,  began  to  appear  as  early  as 
the  eighteenth  century.  One  of  her  first  mani- 
festations was  our  H.  C.  Nordenflycht,  equally 
remarkable  for  her  poetry,  her  culture,  her  in- 
tellectual emancipation,  and  her  power  of  love. 
Another  was  Mary  Wollstonecraft-Godwin  in  Eng- 
land ;  in  France  many  names  might  be  mentioned, 
among  which  the  first  is  Mme.  de  Stael.  The 
German  counterpart  of  these  women  is  supplied  by 


Love  89 

Rahel  and  a  few  other  notable  figures,  especially 
among  the  women  of  the  romantic  school. 

What  is  common  to  all  these  women  is  that  they 
do  not  look  upon  love  as  the  majority  of  their  con- 
temporaries still  did — as  the  playful  Cupid,  who 
only  gave  slight  wounds — but  saw  in  it  the  fatal 
figure  of  Eros.  Love  was  not  to  them  a  brief 
episode  of  their  youth,  upon  which  they  looked 
back  with  smiles  or  emotion — from  the  serious- 
ness of  life  itself.  These  women  possessed  the 
highest  intellectual  culture  of  the  age,  exactly  as 
Heloise  had  that  of  her  time.  But  this  does  not 
prevent  them,  any  more  than  it  prevented  her, 
from  abandoning  themselves  to  a  primitive,  power- 
ful, flaming,  and  consuming  passion. 

At  whatever  period  and  in  whatever  country  a 
woman  has  loved  with  this  great  and  entire  love, 
it  has  implied  in  her  the  unity  of  soul  and  senses, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  demand,  or  at  least  the 
hope,  to  be  loved  as  she  herself  has  loved :  with  a 
love  that  envelops  the  man's  whole  personality,  his 
human  as  well  as  his  masculine  characteristics.  * 

And  Goethe's  letters  to  Frau  von  Stein,  Dide- 

1  See,  for  instance,  Letlres  d'une  Religieuse  Portugaise,  edited 
by  Karl  Larsen;  the  letters  of  H61oise,  edited,  from  the  original 
Latin,  by  Dr.  Moth,  and  the  letters  of  Mile,  de  Lespinasse  now 
published  complete  by  Comte  de  Guerin. 


90  Rahel  Varnhagen 

rot's  to  Sophie  Voland,  show  that  even  in  the 
eighteenth  century  there  were  men  who  could  love 
with  the  most  delicate  appreciation  of  the  loved 
one's  personality;  who  delighted  in  all  its  transi- 
tions, who  wished  to  share  everything  with  the  be- 
loved, from  the  solemn  hours  of  thought  to  the 
fruits  of  the  summer  day,  and  who  only  felt  rich 
when  so  sharing. 

But  on  the  whole  both  these  women  and  these 
men  were  far  in  advance  of  their  time  as  regards 
the  emotion  which  Rahel  calls  "the  new  European 
love." 

The  first  martyr  of  this  love  was  Heloise,  who 

with  her  conscious  will  devoted  her  whole  soul  and 

all  her  senses  to  love;  who  preferred  to  be  called 

Abelard's   paramour    rather    than    an   emperor's 

consort;  who  with  reckless  honesty  confesses  her 

white-hot  passion,  her  longing,  her  suffering,  who 

feels  with  pride  that  her  soul  is  made  great  by  this 

fire,  and  that  her  fidelity  to  herself  is  her  nobility. 

She  already  possessed  the  new  woman's  clear  view 

of  herself  and  of  her  love,  and  she  already  suffers 

yjthe  pangs  innumerable  women  in  our  time  have 

I  suffered,  when  they  found  that  the  man's  love  had 

'never  embraced  their  soul.     In  Heloise  we  find 

already  the  unity  of  love,  glowing  passion,  and 


Love  91 

intense  affection;  we  find  defiance  of  the  destiny 
which  denies  her  the  satisfaction  of  her  need  of  love 
— the  loftiest  and  purest  need  of  her  being — we 
find  the  courage  to  suffer,  nay,  to  be  crushed, 
rather  than  not  to  have  loved,  that  is,  not  to  have 
lived. 

Heloise  has  certainly  had  sisters  here  and  there 
in  the  course  of  the  centuries,  though  they  have 
not  had  her  power  of  giving  expression  to  their 
souls. x 

But  the  type  of  man  these  women  had  waited 
for  first  appeared  in  Werther,  a  man  with  such 
freedom  of  soul,  so  responsive  a  sensitiveness,  so 
profound  a  need  of  love,  that  to  him,  too,  love  was 
the  vital  question ;  a  man  who  could  love  a  Heloise- 
nature  as  such  a  "  grande  amoureuse"  would  be 
loved,  with  all  his  senses  as  a  woman,  but  with  all 
his  soul  as  a  personality. 2 

1  See,  among  other  works,  Kurt  Breysig's  Die  Entstehung  der 
Liebe. 

3  Dr.  W.  Nowack,  in  his  interesting  study,  Liebe  und  Ehe  im 
deutschen  Roman  zu  Rousseau's  Zeiten,  reminds  us  how  during  the 
Renaissance  woman  as  well  as  man  aspired  to  completeness  of 
personality  without  any  kind  of  "emancipation  movement," 
since  her  right  in  this  respect  was  undisputed;  that  even  then 
spiritualised  love  appeared  among  exceptional  natures  and  al- 
ways without  marriage,  whereas  Rousseau,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
lacking  in  comprehension  of  the  development  of  the  feminine 
personality.  Goethe,  who  had  absorbed  with  every  fibre  of  his 


92  Rahel  Varnhagen 

Rahel  began  by  sharing  the  fate  of  the  woman 
who  is  before  her  time,  in  not  meeting  the  man  who 
was  worthy  of  her  love. 

The  fact  that  young  Count  Karl  von  Fincken- 
stein  not  only  fell  in  love  with,  but  also  became 
engaged  to  Rahel,  who  was  remarkable  neither 
for  beauty,  social  position,  nor  wealth,  shows  that 
he  was  a  man  who  already  belonged  to  the  new  age 
in  spirit,  although  in  other  ways  his  disposition 
was  not  such  as  could  sustain  this  spirit. 

He  and  Rahel  saw  each  other  for  the  first  time 
at  the  opera,  and  their  profound  love  of  music, 
which  in  him  was  united  to  a  remarkable  talent 
for  singing,  was  the  real  community  of  souls 
which  brought  them  together.  They  met  in 
society,  for  Rahel  was  just  then  in  the  phase  dur- 

heart  the  new  gospel  of  the  triumph  of  passion  over  reason,  was 
the  first  to  extend  Rousseau's  doctrine  and  to  be  the  discoverer 
of  modern  love.  Werther  spiritualises  his  love  into  affinity  of 
the  soul,  he  is  enraptured  by  what  is  individual  in  the  loved  one 's 
being,  by  the  poetry  in  her  nature.  In  Stella  Goethe  sought  al- 
ready to  resolve  a  matrimonial  conflict  in  the  spirit  of  our  time, 
and  he  saw  that  the  custom  would  have  to  be  transformed,  if  it 
was  not  to  become  immorality.  In  all  his  works  Goethe  shows 
that  reverence  for  the  harmony  and  beauty  of  woman's  soul, 
without  which  no  refined  soul-life  is  possible  between  man  and 
woman,  without  which  passion  can  be  neither  lofty  nor  enduring. 
And  what  Goethe  had  begun  was  continued  in  Germany  by 
the  romantic  school  and  Young  Germany,  and  in  France  by  St. 
Simon,  Michelet,  Stendhal,  and  others. 


Love  93 

ing  which  she  made  up  for  some  of  the  pleasure  of 
which  ill-health  and  mental  suffering  had  deprived 
her  in  her  first  youth.  She  appeared  at  this  time 
younger  than  her  age,  with  a  reserve  of  appetite 
for  social  enjoyments.  Thus  Rahel,  who  was 
already  twenty-five,  seemed  more  like  other 
young  women,  and  it  was  not  until  later  that 
Finckenstein,  who  was  a  year  and  a  half  her 
junior,  felt  the  oppression  of  Rahel's  superior 
personality,  while  at  first  he  had  soul  enough  only 
to  feel  its  charm. 

He  was  a  man  who  might  have  been  purposely 
made  to  be  idealised  by  Rahel.  In  the  first  place 
his  nature  had  the  refinement,  ease,  and  grace  of 
the  aristocrat,  which  possessed  the  strongest  attrac- 
tion for  Rahel  throughout  her  life.  In  addition  to 
this  he  was  unusually  handsome.  His  fine  figure, 
his  noble  features,  his  mild  blue  eyes,  the  golden 
hair,  fine  as  silk,  which  surrounded  his  forehead  in 
natural  curls,  all  gave  him  the  appearance  of  a 
prince  of  fairy-tale  come  to  life.  His  singing,  his 
many-sided  culture,  his  feeling  for  nature,  and 
his  admiration  for  Goethe,  his  impressionable 
sensitiveness,  all  made  Rahel  believe  in  a  pro- 
found affinity  of  souls  between  them.  And  his 
letters,  which,  together  with  a  lock  of  his  wonder- 


94  Rahel  Varnhagen 

ful  hair,  were  found  among  Rahel's  private 
treasures  after  her  death,  are  sufficiently  full  of 
meaning  and  warmth  to  make  Rahel  believe  what 
he  constantly  assured  her — that  he  belonged  to 
her  "for  ever";  that  she  set  in  motion  all  the  good 
within  him,  that  she  formed  his  personality,  that 
he  found  in  her  a  clarity  and  truth,  a  diversity  and 
a  strength  of  feeling  as  in  no  one  else.  The  know- 
ledge of  her  love  makes  him  weep  with  happiness, 
as  he  reads  her  glorious  letters  under  the  flowering 
acacias,  and  when  in  her  little  room  they  look  up 
together  towards  the  stars  he  feels  a  perfect  bliss. 

Since  she  loved  him  herself,  Rahel  could  not 
doubt  his  having  strength  of  will  enough  to 
prepare  a  future  for  their  love. 

But  how  often  is  young  love  strong?  As  sel- 
dom as  it  is  clear-sighted.  In  most  cases  this 
young  love  is  an  enchanting  and  intoxicating  feel- 
ing that  at  last  one  experiences  for  one's  self  this 
wonderful  thing  of  which  poets  have  sung  and 
round  which  one's  dreams  have  circled;  that  one 
knows  its  suspense  and  anxieties,  exchanges  its  ex- 
pressions of  tenderness,  hears  and  pronounces  its 
great  and  beautiful  words!  During  all  this  Rahel, 
like  countless  highly  developed  young  women  be- 
fore and  after  her,  transformed  Finckenstein  into 


Love  95 

something  that  he  was  not.  Only  by  degrees  did 
she  discover  that  she  did  not  know  his  real  nature, 
that  which  only  actions  can  reveal.  The  words, 
again,  which  lovers  say  or  write  to  each  other,  only 
show  what  they  wish  to  be  or  what  they  believe 
themselves  capable  of  becoming,  not  what  they 
are.  When  put  to  the  test,  Finckenstein  proved 
to  be  a  weak  child,  incapable  of  entertaining  a 
great  feeling,  still  less  of  fighting  for  the  feeble  one 
he  harboured. 

His  father  was  dead  and  he  lived  on  the  family 
estate  with  his  mother  and  his  many  sisters. 
These  female  relatives  worshipped  him  with  a 
jealous  affection  which  grudged  him  to  any  other 
woman.  And  to  this  was  added  the  aristocratic 
prejudice  which  was  deeply  wounded  at  the 
thought  that  he  should  introduce  a  wife  of  middle- 
class,  and,  what  was  worse  still,  Jewish,  birth 
into  their  circle.  No  doubt  some  of  the  rich  and 
handsome  Jewesses  of  Berlin  had  made  fashionable 
marriages,  but  this  had  not  been  a  source  of  joy 
to  the  families  they  had  married  into.  Thus 
Finckenstein's  mother  and  sisters  found  many 
arguments  to  prove  to  him  that  his  marriage  with 
Rahel  would  turn  out  unhappily  for  himself! 
And  so  he  begins,  like  all  weak  souls,  to  lament 


96  Rahel  Varnhagen 

his  fate  in  his  letters  to  Rahel.  By  turns  he 
assures  Rahel  of  his  love  and  tells  her  that  he 
cannot  bear  to  see  his  mother  and  sisters  suffer. 
Rahel,  who  loves  him,  still  hopes  "to  love  him  into 
love."  She  believes  his  protestations,  suffers  in 
his  suffering,  and  acts  "foolishly  and  uselessly, "  as 
she  afterwards  called  it,  in  holding  to  him  as  long 
as  she  believes  in  his  asseverations.  "Neither  of 
us  was  a  hero, "  she  says,  "neither  he  in  his  way  nor 
I  in  mine. "  But  by  degrees  she  perceives  and  at 
last  she  says  openly,  that  he  does  not  feel  happy 
with  her,  nor  she  with  -him,  in  the  same  way, 
because  she  overawes  him.  She  understands  that 
his  relatives  are  gaining  power,  while  she  herself 
is  losing  it,  since  he  feels  ill  at  ease  under  the  in- 
fluence of  her  strong  personality.  Time  after  time 
she  gave  him  the  choice  between  herself  and  his 
own  people:  he  returned  to  her,  but  only  to  re- 
commence his  lamentations.  Rahel  did  not  hasten 
the  decision,  nor  was  she  driven  to  it  by  wounded 
pride,  but  by  the  knowledge  that  no  happiness 
could  be  real  unless  it  was  necessary  to  both  of 
them.  Their  engagement  lasted  from  1796  to 
1800,  with  unremitting  protestations  of  love  and 
tears  on  his  part,  interspersed  with  the  inevitable 
assurances  of  a  nature  like  his:  that  he  did  not 


Love  97 

lack  energy,  but — that  his  heart  suffered  in 
causing  pain  to  those  nearest  him! 

And  so  the  decision  was  the  usual  one  in  such 
cases.  Rahel,  who  had  most  right  to  suffer,  but 
who  complained  least,  was  sacrificed  and  the 
jealous,  selfish,  narrow-minded  sisters  carried  off 
the  victory. 

So  blind  was  the  man  who  had  won  the  first 
love  of  a  Rahel.  But  it  cannot  be  doubted  that 
Finckenstein's  feeling  for  Rahel  was  real  enough 
to  have  enabled  her  to  give  him  strength  to  de- 
cide otherwise.  Most  women  in  Rahel's  place 
would  have  used  all  the  resources  their  love,  their 
suffering,  and  their  personality  gave  them. 

Rahel  did  not  do  so.  She  hoped  to  the  last  that 
his  feeling  was  as  strong  as  his  words.  When  she 
saw  that  it  was  as  pale  and  weak  as  his  good  looks, 
she  gave  up  the  struggle. 

But  she  did  so  only  after  sufferings,  in  which 
all  the  bitterness  of  the  past  was  mingled.  Even 
to  begin  to  hope  had  been  difficult  to  her,  who 
through  her  birth  and  early  sorrows  had  become  so 
convinced  of  being  destined  for  suffering;  who  had 
stood  in  shadow  by  the  way  along  which  the 
fortunate  passed,  had  stood  with  closed  hands, 
certain  that  no  golden  apple  would  fall  into  her 


98  Rahel  Varnhagen 

grasp.  And  since  the  marvel  had  befallen  her 
that  life  had  opened  her  clenched  hands  and  laid 
in  them  its  most  beautiful  gift,  she  could  not  re- 
gard love  as  a  thing  to  fight  for.  Even  should  she 
once  more  be  lonely  after  having  tasted  com- 
panionship, humiliated  after  having  been  raised 
up,  poor  after  having  possessed  riches — she  must 
bear  this  rather  than  do  violence  to  her  inmost 
consciousness,  the  consciousness  of  the  new  woman : 
that  no  human  being  has  the  right  to  retain  an- 
other by  any  other  power  than  that  other  person's 
inmost  necessity.  Unless  the  requisite  strength 
existed  in  the  loved  one  himself,  in  his  emotion,  to 
ensure  the  happiness  of  both,  there  was  no  meaning 
to  justify  their  union  or  to  give  it  reality.  It  was 
no  false  pride,  no  ill-applied  consideration,  that 
determined  Rahel.  For  she  possessed  in  a  high 
degree  the  knowledge  that  belongs  to  the  new  love : 
that  one  has  duties  in  the  first  place  towards  one's 
love,  above  all  that  of  sacrificing  the  unessential 
to  the  essential. 

And  when  Rahel  gave  Finckenstein  full  freedom 
of  choice,  she  still  cherished  in  her  inmost  heart  the 
lover's  hope,  that  hope  which  can  live  even  on 
improbabilities,  that  he  would  choose  her.  He 
showed,  on  the  contrary,  how  right  one  of  Rahel's 


Love  99 

friends  had  been  in  comparing  his  heart  to  a  toy 
watch,  with  figures  and  hands  but  no  works ! 

Rahel  was  left  disappointed,  not  only  of  her 
happiness,  but  disappointed  in  her  lover's  nature. 
She  did  not  accuse  him;  he  had  acted,  she  said, 
according  to  his  nature,  the  fault  was  hers,  who  had 
not  seen  what  his  nature  was.  But  such  a  per- 
ception is  never  a  consolation,  or  at  least  the  way  to 
such  a  source  of  consolation  is  very  long.  Rahel 
now  felt,  like  others  who  have  gone  through  simi- 
lar experiences,  that  all  blows  are  light  in  com- 
parison with  that  of  finding  one's  self  deceived  in  a 
person.  It  is  this  pain  which  may  make  the  very 
joints  of  the  personality  go  to  pieces,  which  may 
bring  a  dissolving  poison  into  the  spiritual  organ- 
ism. And  natures  like  Rahel's  are  above  all  ex- 
posed to  this  pain.  For  they  have  a  boundless 
confidence  in  the  nobility  of  others,  and  all  life  is 
suddenly  thrown  out  of  gear  when  this  confidence 
is  shaken  through  the  very  person  who  has  in- 
spired it.  The  traces  of  such  suffering  are  never 
effaced. 

Yes,  there  is  always  a  drawn  sword  between  us, 
and  life  after  this,  just  as  it  smiled  most  brightly 
upon  us,  suddenly  took  us  by  the  throat  like  a 
murderer.  Our  childlike  confidence  in  life  is  im- 


ioo  Rahel  Varnhagen 

possible  when  we  have  discovered  that  it  does  not 
mean  well  by  us.  And  Rahel,  who  had  already 
suffered  so  much,  thought  herself  destined  for  un- 
happiness.  She  expresses  the  experience  of  her- 
self and  many  others  in  a  profound  word  when  she 
speaks  of  the  sense  of  guilt  one  feels  through  sorrow. 
This  feeling  is  not  the  brooding  over  the  faults 
and  mistakes  through  which  one  may  have  helped 
to  bring  about  one's  own  sorrow.  No,  it  is,  as 
Rahel  says,  the  sense  that  one  is  no  longer  one  of 
nature's  pure  beings,  a  worthy  sister  to  all  its 
calm,  healthy,  beautiful  creatures,  since  one  has 
undergone  the  ill-treatment,  has  sunk  into  the 
despair,  in  which  one  would  have  thrown  away 
existence  merely  to  escape  suffering. 

"Oh,  do  not  think  that  what  I  tell  you  is  exag- 
gerated. I  am  only  afraid,  when  anything  happens 
to  me,  that  it  is  everlasting.  To  wound  a  sensitive 
spirit  is  to  destroy  it.  If  I  showed  my  wounds  they 
would  remind  you  of  the  shambles.  .  .  ." 

"  Acquaintance  with  misfortune  is  degrading,  that  is 
an  opinion  I  will  never  relinquish.  One  is  no  longer  a 
pure  creature  of  nature,  no  longer  stands  in  the  re- 
lation of  a  sister  to  the  calm  things  of  life,  when  once, 
terrified  by  pain  and  humiliation,  one  would  gladly  in 
one's  despair  have  given  one's  life  not  to  be  able  to  feel 
pain;  when  one  has  seen  cruelty  in  everything — all 
nature.  .  ."  "One  has  to  look  forward  either  to 


Love  101 

madness  or  to  death  or  to  recovery.  Neither  of  the 
first  two  has  happened  to  me.  But  still  I  cannot  say 
that  I  am  better;  I  have  got  over  it,  let  me  say.  .  .  ." 
"  What  I  have  not  received  I  can  forget;  but  what 
has  happened  to  me  I  cannot  forget.  God  protect 
any  one  from  understanding  this." 

From  this  time  Rahel  no  longer  felt  herself 
indivisible,  that  is  to  say,  she  lived  with  two  views 
of  the  world :  one  of  inmost  despair,  which  had  be- 
come her  direct  view;  the  other  life-loving,  which 
was  no  longer  direct,  but  was  the  hard-won  faculty 
of  continuing  to  impart  the  riches  of  existence 
"more  purely,  more  willingly,  and  in  greater  variety 
than  any  one  else. " 

Rahel  saw  Finckenstein  again  eleven  years  later, 
the  same  year  that  he  died.  And  how  deeply  she 
had  suffered  is  shown  by  her  words,  both  after 
their  meeting  and  after  his  death.  He  came  to  her 
"cold  as  a  frog,  shamefaced  as  a  knave  caught  in 
the  act";  he  talked  about  his  handsome  wife,  and 
Rahel  afterwards  wrote  some  pages  in  her  diary 
which  show  that  she  found  the  explanation  of  her 
inability  to  inspire  a  real  love  in  Finckenstein  in 
her  own  lack  of  beauty,  charm,  and  power  of 
attraction.  But  after  his  death  she  feels  once 
more  that  the  contempt  he  inspired  in  her  when 


102  Rahel  Varnhagen 

alive  has  not  disappeared.     For  death  could  not 
alter  her  judgment  of  his  paltriness. 

It  may  be  disputed  whether  Weininger  is  right 
in  his  opinion  that  the  chief  component  of  genius 
is  memory,  lit  is  certain,  however,  that  this  is  a 
fundamental  condition  of  depth  of  feeling.  \  Rahel 
was  one  of  those  who  are  never  induced  by  death 
or  lapse  of  time  to  change  their  feelings.  Her 
heart  had  cried  aloud  "murderer, "  as  Finckenstein 
sat  calmly  before  her.  And  she  would  not  change 
this  heart  of  hers,  which  nature  herself  had  fash- 
ioned "rebelle  et  douce."  J  A  sea  of  bitterness  rose 
within  her  at  the  thought  that  that  man  had  had 
this  power  over  her,  nay,  still  had  it.  { 

"I  felt  like  an  animal  that  belonged  to  him.  He 
had  had  it  in  his  power  to  devour  me.  ..." 

"But  out  of  every  flame  I  have  hitherto  brought 
my  heart  unscathed,  and  this  heart,  even  when  it  is 
deeply  stirred,  lives  entirely  for  itself.  ...  If  by 
a  magic  ring  he  had  yesterday  been  able  to  undo  all 
that  has  passed  in  these  twelve  years,  he  would  have 
had  the  power,  if  he  had  wished,  once  more  to  possess 
himself  of  my  whole  life.  But  this  vice  in  me — (how 
shall  I  otherwise  call  it  or  regard  it  ?  I  do  not  reproach 
myself;  I  know  my  heart  perfectly:  it  must  love;  it  is 
faithful,  for  it  is  strong  and  whole) — this  vice  is  called 
virtue  in  women  who  are  favoured  by  fortune ! " 

Rightly  to  understand  the  force  of  these  words 


Love  103 

it  must  be  remembered  that  when  Rahel  wrote  this 
she  was  engaged  to  Varnhagen. 

The  most  lenient  judgment  she  passed  up- 
on him  was  severe  enough:  that  he  was  a  child, 
destroying  values  of  the  greatness  of  which  he 
was  unconscious. 

During  the  first  few  weeks  after  the  rupture, 
Rahel  was  helped  in  the  best  possible  way  by  an 
illness,  which  gave  her  time  and  an  excuse  for 
fighting  her  way  in  solitude  to  resignation.  When 
she  then  began,  with  the  receptivity  of  the  con- 
valescent, to  reopen  her  mind  to  new  impressions, 
a  friend,  the  Countess  von  Schlabrendorf,  took 
her  with  her  to  Paris.  The  wealth  of  experiences 
this  visit  occasioned,  came  at  the  right  time. 
Rahel' s  full  receptivity  and  her  shrewd  appre- 
hension are  shown  in  her  letters  to  those  at  home, 
among  whom  both  Jean  Paul  and  F.  Schlegel  con- 
sider that  a  truer  picture  of  Parisian  life  and  of 
the  French  could  not  be  imagined. 

But  Rahel's  best  help  in  her  efforts  to  regain  her 
love  of  life  came  from  a  young  compatriot. 

This  was  a  youth  of  twenty,  named  Bokelmann, 
who  was  sent  to  her  by  a  friend  they  had  in  com- 
mon. With  unusual  good  looks  he  combined  a 


104  Rah  el  Varnhagen 

soul  as  open  as  a  flower.  He  attached  himself 
warmly  to  Rahel  just  at  the  moment  when  every 
heart  is  most  susceptible  of  affection:  when  its 
wounds  are  beginning  to  close. 

The  young  man's  appreciative  sympathy  acted 
like  gentle  breezes  upon  trampled  grass.  Blade 
after  blade  rose  again  and  caught  the  dew  and 
the  sunshine. 

But  Rahel  was  not  yet  ready  for  a  new  love,  and 
her  delight  in  the  rich,  pure,  young  feeling  that 
she  encountered  did  not  develop  into  any  other 
kind  of  love  than  that  in  which  one  desires  no- 
thing, in  which  one  "does  not  wish  to  possess  the 
lovable  thing,  but  only  to  see  it  bloom."  And 
when  they  part,  after  a  couple  of  months  of  each 
other's  society  in  Paris,  we  see  from  Rahel's 
letters  that  she  is  also  trying  to  transform  his 
inclination  into  the  fine  feeling  without  a  name, 
which  Rahel  so  well  characterises  in  saying  that 
we  can  delight  in  each  other  as  we  delight  in  and 
love  a  lovable  child,  met  by  chance,  a  happiness 
which  may  belong  to  every  one  and  which  does  not 
involve  any  desire  to  possess  the  object  loved. 
And  on  both  sides,  after  a  few  years'  corre- 
spondence, the  relationship  became  nothing  more 
than  a  beautiful  memory. 


Love  105 

On  her  way  home  from  Paris  Rahel  visited  a 
married  sister  at  Amsterdam.  She  took  in  the 
natural  beauties  and  art  of  Holland  and  Belgium 
with  fine  appreciation. 

And  all  the  glories  of  art  she  had  become  ac- 
quainted with  on  this  journey  made  her  long  for 
Italy.  But,  as  she  says  later,  the  good  fortune  of 
"seeing  Italy  with  my  senses  and  a  joyful,  strong 
heart"  never  fell  to  her  lot. 

That  she  was  again  capable  of  longing,  and  that 
this  longing  turned  to  the  south,  proves  that  she 
felt  once  more  that  love  of  life  which  she  had 
thought  extinct. 

She  expresses  her  consciousness  of  the  change  in 
the  words:  "Without  wishing  to  do  so,  we  are 
always  playing  rouge  et  noir  with  ourselves; 
whether  we  win  or  lose  we  feel  that  we  are  thus 
living. " 

Even  during  her  deepest  suffering  Rahel  had 
told  herself  that  life  had  still  some  sources 
of  joy  left,  though  they  were  then  obscured  by 
sorrow. 

Through  Bokelmann  she  had  experienced  "as 
much  of  love  as  was  needful. " 

"Some  one  must  be  rejoiced  by  what  was  a  neces- 
sity to  us  and  what  our  never-resting  conscience  bade 


io6  Rahel  Varnhagen 

us  create ;  and  so  we  begin  again  to  take  delight  in  our 
work." 

She  could  now  return  consoled  to  her  garret, 
though  filled  with  the  resignation  which  makes 
one  still  young  feel  old. 

"My  soul  has  regained  its  peace,  my  mind  its 
equilibrium,  my  spirit  its  due  elasticity.  ..." 

"When  all  is  said  and  done,  all  our  tears  and  bitter- 
est suffering  are  only  about  possession ;  (but  one  can 
never  possess  anything  but  the  capacity  for  enjoy- 
ment .\  . 

"What  really  makes  people  thoroughly  unhappy  is, 
that  they  cannot  make  up  their  minds  not  to  be  happy. 
But  when  once  we  are  thrust  into  this,  old  age  suddenly 
sets  in.  Our  aspirations  are  no  longer  directed  to  the 
infinite;  we  parcel  out  life  and  live,  as  we  say,  for  the 
hour.  'Tears,  splendour,  and  fury  have  an  end.' 
We  stiffen,  grow  kind,  and  get  wrinkles.  Old  age 
comes  suddenly — like  every  other  perception — not 
gradually,  as  people  think. " 

In  true  old  age,  however,  resignation  is  pre- 
cisely our  only  means  of  still  feeling  young.  And 
Rahel  was  still  a  long  way  off  that  age. 

No  trait  is  more  significant  of  Rahel's  nature — 
and  nothing  makes  her  to  a  greater  degree  our 
contemporary — than  her  never  regretting  the  love 
which  had  caused  her  so  much  suffering,  nor  yet 


Love  107 

trying  to  persuade  herself  that  she  will  never  love 
again.  She  knows  that  "they  who  have  pain, 
have  yet  the  most  of  life." 

"Like  Posa,  I  have  lost.  But  I  should  not  wish  to 
be  one  of  those  who  do  not  hazard  themselves.  ..." 

"He  who  goes  about  in  this  hard  world  without 
armour  on  his  breast  must  be  wounded.  I  did  not 
know  this.  The  terror  of  it  is  the  worst,  and  when  one 
still  looks  upon  bleeding  as  death.  Wounds  will 
still  come,  but  no  longer  unexpectedly. " 

And  in  this  trait  the  great  nature  reveals  it- 
self. They  only  live  who  are  lavish  of  them- 
selves. 


Rahel  expressed  a  great  truth  when  she  said  that 
privileged  souls,  regal  natures,  long  remain  inno- 
cent; that  they  only  learn  with  difficulty  to  per- 
ceive that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  baseness,  and 
constantly  ignore  this  experience  in  the  sense  that 
they  return  again  and  again  with  confidence  to 
men  and  life,  in  spite  of  their  having  neither  for- 
gotten nor  avenged  the  wrongs  they  have  suffered. 

Rahel  herself  was  one  of  these  natures,  who 
remember  the  evil  without  the  memory  having  a 
warning  effect,  who  learn  from  all  experiences 


io8  Rahel  Varnhagen 

except  from  this,  that  there  are  natures  less  noble 
than  their  own.. 

And  thus  the  experience  of  sorrow  could  not 
prevent  Rahel  from  loving  once  more,  and  this  time 
again  a  man  who  was  to  make  her  suffer  far  more 
deeply. 

Rahel  had  now  reached  the  dangerous  age  in  a 
woman's  life,  the  age  of  thirty,  when,  as  never  be- 
fore or  after,  a  woman  is  ready  for  love  in  the  full 
sense  of  the  word.  Of  the  Northern  woman,  at 
any  rate,  and  as  such  Rahel  may  be  regarded,  it 
is  true  that  in  her  first  youth  she  only  loves  with 
her  soul.  But  at  the  age  we  speak  of  her  senses  as 
well  as  her  soul  are  awake;  with  her  whole  being 
the  woman  then  desires  the  consummation  of  her 
nature  through  love  and  motherhood.  She  still 
desires  it  with  the  whole  freshness  of  youth,  but 
with  a  new  strength.  The  girl's  love-longing  has 
life  before  it;  the  mature  woman  knows  she  must 
soon  begin  the  descent,  and  that  with  every  year 
the  possibility  becomes  greater  of  her  being  com- 
pelled to  die  without  having  lived,  in  life's  own 
holy  and  full  sense. 

Few  are  the  natures  that  use  up  their  whole 
power  of  loving  on  a  first  love.  And  least  of  all 
was  Rahel  one  of  them.  The  tempest  of  spring 


Love  109 

had  broken  a  branch  just  when  it  should  have 
flowered,  but  a  fresh  warmth  in  the  air  was  all  that 
was  needed  to  make  all  the  buds  burst. 

This  came  about  when,  in  1802,  Rahel  became 
acquainted  with  the  man  who  was  the  object  of 
the  great  love  of  her  life,  that  love  which  never 
comes  twice  in  a  human  life,  for  which  every 
earlier  love  is  only  a  preparation  and  of  which 
every  later  one  is  only  a  memory.  It  is  this  love 
that  makes  all  the  forces  of  the  being  rise  as  the 
spring  floods  rise  in  rivers  and  streams;  that  fills 
the  whole  being  as  the  wine-press  is  filled  with  the 
ripe  grapes  of  the  vineyard;  that  collects  in  a 
sacrificial  cup  all  tears  formerly  shed  in  sorrow  or 
gladness.  This  love  is  never  unrequited,  it  is  al- 
ways the  daemonic  attraction  of  two  beings.  This 
irresistible  and  fateful  passion  may  unite  for  their 
happiness  or  their  ruin  two  beings  fully  worthy  of 
one  another.  But  it  may  also  force  together  two 
beings  of  very  unequal  worth  to  the  misfortune 
of  one  or  both.  And  such  was  Rahel's  fate  in  the 
love  that  turned  her  whole  being  to  flame  and 
burned  her  youth  to  ashes. 

It  was  psychologically  necessary  that  this  fate 
should  befall  Rahel  in  the  person  of  a  man  in  all 
respects  unlike  Finckenstein,  unlike  him  as  the 


no  Rahel  Varnhagen 

south  is  unlike  the  north  or  the  red  blood  unlike 
the  blue. 

The  Spanish  Secretary  of  Legation  in  Berlin, 
Don  Raphael  d'Urquijo,  was  introduced  to  Rahel 
by  his  Minister.  All  the  rare  beauty  and  chival- 
rous charm  of  his  nation  was  present  in  him,  to- 
gether with  the  directness  and  vivacity  of  the  child 
of  nature,  which  always  exercised  the  greatest 
attraction  upon  Rahel.  Urquijo  came  from  his 
country  home  in  northern  Spain  and  his  exterior 
was  typical  of  the  Basque  race.  His  refined  fea- 
tures possessed  nobility  and  strength  in  the  same 
degree,  his  eyes  were  such  as  Velasquez  painted, 
now  flaming,  gleaming  fires,  now  deep,  dark  wells. 
His  Spanish  dignity  and  southern  charm  were 
united  to  a  natural  ease  which  made  his  every 
movement  graceful.  His  voice  had  the  music  that 
ennobles  even  the  commonplace  word  and  renders 
that  of  affection  irresistible. 

To  all  these  charms  was  added  the  novel  singu- 
larity of  his  foreign  nationality.  This  has  at  first 
the  effect  of  a  mysterious  and  personal  peculi- 
arity. It  requires  time  to  discover  that  this 
interesting  quality,  which  allures  one  with  its 
unknown  treasures  and  strange  fascination,  only 


Love  1 1 1 

belongs  to  the  nature  of  the  nation  or  race,  not  to 
that  of  the  person  himself. 

With  Urquijo  as  with  Rahel  love  appeared  at 
their  very  first  meeting,  and  the  time  that  imme- 
diately ensued  was  a  very  happy  one.  They  were 
united  by  sympathetic  exchanges  of  ideas,  sincere 
affection,  and  erotic  attraction.  The  only  un- 
easiness in  their  companionship  was  due  to  the 
scruples  his  sense  of  honour  imposed  on  him  in  re- 
gard to  a  youthful  love  affair  in  Spain,  scruples 
which,  however,  were  soon  removed,  as  Urquijo 
heard  that  this  love  of  his  youth  had  thrown  him 
over  long  before  he  had  ceased  to  love  her.  But 
now  a  more  serious  conflict  arose,  between  Rahel 's 
frank  and  generous  nature,  her  confident  love,  free 
from  all  jealousy,  and  the  Spaniard's  sensitive 
and  jealous  feeling  of  proprietorship.  Besides 
the  inevitable  misunderstandings  due  to  their 
ignorance  of  each  other's  national  customs,  others 
constantly  arose,  through  this  difference  in  the 
manner  of  thejr  love.  Rahel,  who  attributed  to 
Urquijo  nothing  but  great,  pure,  and  good  feelings, 
hoped  that  his  jealousy,  however  unreasonable, 
mad  even,  it  seemed  to  her,  was  nevertheless  a 
proof  of  the  strength  of  his  love.  She  did  all  she 
could  to  show  him  how  dearly  she  loved  him. 


1 12  Rahel  Varnhagen 

But  she  could  not  love  wildly  and  jealously  like 
a  Spanish  woman,  she  had  to  love  with  the  lofti- 
ness and  wholeness  of  her  own  nature.  And  it 
availed  her  nothing  that  she  was  perfect  in  her 
generous  purity  of  soul,  in  her  childlike  confidence. 
For  just  these  qualities,  which  proved  her  de- 
votion, seemed  to  him  to  prove  her  coldness.1 
That  Urquijo  himself  took  an  erotic  relationship 
seriously  is  shown  not  only  by  the  scruples  lately 
mentioned  but  by  the  fact  that  he  afterwards 
married  a  Berlin  girl,  insignificant  from  every 
point  of  view,  who  had  become  his  mistress. 
But  he  could  not  see  the  earnestness  of  Rahel's 
feeling,  because  it  was  so  unlike  his  own.  It  was 
an  external  difficulty  that  Urquijo  only  under- 
stood but  could  not  use  the  German  language  and 
that  Rahel  did  not  know  Spanish,  so  that  their 
correspondence,  except  when  now  and  then  Rahel 
relapses  into  German,  like  their  conversation, 
was  carried  on  in  French.  Only  a  small  part  of 
their  correspondence  has  been  preserved,  but  from 
this  remnant  one  can  form  an  idea  of  what  Rahel 's 

1  "  Love  is  the  greatest  of  convictions  " — eye,  ear,  feeling,  heart, 
are  all  irresistibly  convinced;  if  one  can  resist,  then  one  no  longer 
loves;  that  is  why  only  human  beings,  that  is,  "lofty  beings, 
capable  of  conviction,"  love — this  is  one  of  Rahel's  profound 
sayings  of  love. 


Love  113 

letters  must  have  been,  which  Varnhagen  was 
afterwards  permitted  to  read  and  in  which  he 
found  such  "exuberance  of  life,"  so  glowing  a 
warmth,  that  he  could  imagine  only  one  counter- 
part, Rousseau's  letters,  also  destroyed,  to  Mme. 
d'Houdetot.  Of  Urquijo's  letters  only  a  few 
unimportant  notes  remain. 

The  conflict  which  finally  parted  Rahel  from 
Urquijo  was  not,  as  with  Finckenstein,  the  old- 
fashioned  one  between  love  and  the  prejudice  of 
birth.  It  was  an  entirely  modern  one,  between  the 
man's  and  the  woman's  way  of  loving.  And  in 
this  case  it  was  further  complicated  by  Urquijo's 
having  not  merely  the  Spaniard's,  but  much  more 
than  the  Spaniard's  share  of  jealousy  in  addition  to 
a  poor  measure  of  self-confidence. 

Where  there  is  an  Othello,  an  lago  soon  appears. 
This  part  was  here  taken  by  Urquijo's  friend,  a 
Spanish  count,  who  had  proposed  to  Rahel  but 
had  been  rejected,  and  now  constantly  put  for- 
ward Rahel's  superiority  as  a  ground  for  Urquijo's 
distrusting  her.  When  Rahel  found  that  her 
numerous  friendships  and  social  pleasures  were 
looked  upon  by  Urquijo  as  a  theft  from  him,  she 
gave  up  society,  moved  into  the  country,  and  saw 
no  one  but  him.  But  not  even  this  could  convince 

8 


ii4  Rahel  Varnhagen 

him.  Thus  passed  a  year  and  a  half,  during  which 
Rahel  could  reckon  her  happiness  in  moments, 
while  her  distress  increased  with  every  day.  His 
power  over  her  was  still  the  same.  After  the 
most  agitated  scene  a  tender  word  from  him  is 
able  to  "heal  her  soul  completely,"  to  open  her 
heart  anew,  to  awaken  her  love  again  and  again, 
and  cause  it  to  flow  to  him.  How  is  it  conceivable, 
asks  Rahel,  that  his  morbid  distrust  should  not  be 
curable  and  that  they  should  not  end  by  being 
happy  since  they  love  one  another;  since  they  are 
both  good,  simple,  pure  in  heart,  in  other  words 
have  everything  that  is  necessary  to  be  able  to 
love?  For  one  cannot  love,  Rahel  continues,  with 
profound  truth,  unless  one  has  these  essential 
qualities;  the  same  that  are  necessary  for  reli- 
gion. How  can  he  think  she  has  too  much  genius 
to  be  able  to  love  him?  Her  whole  genius  is  no- 
thing but  her  power  of  loving!  Does  he  not  see 
that  "the  magic  works  so"  that  she  belongs  more 
and  more  to  him;  that  his  presence  constantly 
frees  her  from  a  sense  of  pain?  She  tells  him  that, 
whatever  may  happen,  her  heart  belongs  to  him 
for  life — and  ought  not  she  to  know  this  better 
than  he,  since  the  heart  is  hers? 

How  can  he  disapprove  of  her  letting  every  one 


Love  115 

see  her  feeling?  Is  it  not  a  woman's  nobility  to  be 
able  to  love?  Indeed,  women  have  no  other  rank 
and  no  other  position,  and  she  for  her  part  would 
always  show  her  love,  would  never  conceal  the 
fact  that  she  lived  only  for  him. 

"Faithfulness  is  a  matter  of  course,  it  is  a  condition 
of  love.  Without  a  faithful  spirit  one  cannot  love  at 
all — cannot  live,  I  might  say;  for  what  does  one  know 
of  one's  self,  unless  one  feels  one's  self  to  be  true? 
Without  this  one  could  not  recognise  one's  self!  ..." 

"How  I  love  you,  your  soul!  Believe  me,  I  under- 
stand it,  penetrate  it;  none  of  its  movements  escapes 
me.  Mine  is  worthy  of  it,  and  I  divine  yours.  That 
is  my  genius,  my  wit;  never  believe  that  I  have  any 
other  than  this!  I  am  made  to  love  you,  and  that  is 
all.  .  .  .  What  a  marvel  that  you  love  me!  Yes, 
I  believe  it,  but  it  is  much .  .  .  " 

She  begs  him  not  to  divide  his  intelligence  from 
his  heart.  For,  if  we  rightly  listen  to  the  former, 
it  always  confirms  the  latter.  She  tells  him  again 
and  again  that  her  appearing  incomprehensible  to 
him  is  due  to  his  failure  to  perceive  how  she  is  one 
with  her  love ;  how  entirely  unworldly  she  is ;  that 
she  is  "simple  even  to  stupidity,"  and  that  this  is 
just  the  quality  she  loves  in  herself. 

At  every  moment  when  she  has  been  in  harmony 
with  him,  she  has  felt  the  religious  consecration  of 


n6  Rahel  Varnhagen 

their  love  and  hoped  that  it  would  hallow  their 
whole  life.  For  even  now  love  makes  one  of  them 
holy  to  the  other,  and  she  relies  upon  his  seeing 
that  their  union — "full  of  soul,  of  feeling,  of  up- 
rightness of  heart" — is  the  only  reality,  while  his 
doubts  are  nothing  but  unreality. 

How  great — and  how  imprudent — is  Rahel, 
in  her  assurances  that  she  relies  upon  his  love! 
But  those  women  who  want  to  put  their  lovers' 
affection  to  the  test  are,  according  to  Rahel, 
either  "mad,  or  they  are  lying,  or  they  do  not  love.'1 
She  would  wish  to  take  all  suffering  upon  herself, 
so  that  he  might  be  spared  pain,  and  still  she 
would  be  happy  in  the  midst  of  her  sufferings,  if 
only  he  loved  her.  She  tries  to  get  him  to  see\ 
that  love,  when  it  is  genuine,  is  "  a  force  of  the  heart, 
afire  of  the  soul,  a  unity  of  the  spirits,  a  purity  of  the 
whole  being";  nay,  that  this  warmth  of  the  heart 
is  the  same  that  has  founded  religions  and  won 
battles,  that  has  reared  the  fabric  of  existence  and 
formed  all  holy  bonds. 

She  complains  that  nature  and  circumstances 
have  denied  her  the  revelation  of  her  soul  through 
outward  beauty.  For  it  would  have  been  her 
highest  happiness  thus  to  reveal  herself  to  him, 
"for  whom  alone  I  would  buy  every  attraction 


Love  117 

with  my  blood,  for  whom  alone  I  live  and  would 
wish  to  be  beautiful. " 

When  Urquijo,  before  a  journey,  had  rested  a 
few  hours  at  her  home,  she  told  him  afterwards 
how  she  had  sat  by  him  and  rejoiced  at  his  calm 
sleep ;  how  she  watched  over  him  like  a  sister,  like 
a  woman  who  was  his  as  surely  as  the  heart  in  his 
breast;  how  the  air  around  him  had  glowed  with 
tenderness,  and  how  she  had  intertwined  their 
souls  and  raised  them  both  in  a  silent  prayer. 

It  remained  to  Rahel  an  everlasting,  torment- 
ing enigma  that  a  woman,  who  thus  showed  the 
unity  and  intensity  of  her  feeling  in  every  action 
and  every  word,  should  not  be  able  to  convince  its 
object  of  it.  For  it  was  manifest  as  the  warmth  of 
the  sun,  the  freshness  of  the  air;  why  was  it  not 
seen  and  respected  as  much  as  these  great  things 
of  nature? 

And  when  she  was  forced  to  tell  herself  again  and 
again  that  he  yet  doubted,  all  existence  became  in- 
coherent, as  though  its  fundamental  laws  had  been 
cancelled.  If  Urquijo  had  not  returned  her  love — 
that  she  could  have  understood  and  submitted  to. 
But  Rahel's  whole  being  rebelled  against  this  ill- 
treatment  of  her  feeling,  this  blindness  to  her 
nature,  this  impenetrable  and  cruel  riddle. 


n8  Rahel  Varnhagen 

Among  Urquijo's  letters  are  a  few  lines,  written 
during  an  illness,  which  give  a  clue  to  the  under- 
standing of  the  riddle,  especially  if  we  look  at 
them  in  connection  with  his  subsequent  history. 
He  writes:  "  Your  calm,  which  under  other  circum- 
stances would  have  caused  me  unhappiness,  some- 
what  relieves  my  hard  lot.  I  will  see  you  as  little  as 
possible,  unless  you  desire  the  contrary.  You  must 
be  able  to  guess  the  reason.  Your  words  console  me, 
but  your  presence  adds  fuel  to  the  fire."  When, 
later,  Rahel  asked  herself  with  bitterness  why  he 
believed  in  the  insignificant  girl  who  became  first 
his  mistress  and,  when  he  was  sure  of  her  love, 
his  wife,  perhaps  the  answer  was  this:  that  she 
gave  him  that  proof  of  her  love  which  Rahel  had 
not  given,  and  which,  to  the  southern  lover, 
is  the  only  convincing  proof.  To  this  it  must  be 
added  that  Urquijo  with  good  reason  found  him- 
self inferior  to  Rahel,  and  that  he  saw  her  inter- 
est in  her  gifted  men  friends.  Urquijo  doubtless 
suffered  deeply  from  his  incapacity  for  con- 
viction, just  as  Rahel  suffered  from  her  inability 
to  convince  him. 

Indirectly  Rahel  has  confessed  that  she  re- 
gretted the  want  of  courage  which  prevented 
her  from  surrendering  herself  completely  to  love, 


Love  1 19 

when  she  compares  herself  with  Pauline  Wiesel 
and  praises  the  latter's  courage,  which,  together 
with  her  irresistible  charms,  gave  her  a  different 
fate. 

"There  is  a  difference  between  us:  you  live  every- 
thing, since  you  have  had  courage  and  fortune;  I 
imagine  most  of  it,  since  I  have  had  no  fortune  and 
was  not  given  courage — not  the  courage  to  force  my 
happiness  from  fortune,  to  pluck  it  out  of  her  hands. 
I  have  only  learnt  the  courage  of  endurance,"  Rahel 
writes  to  Pauline  Wiesel. 

Rahel  complains  also  of  the  error  of  "madly  letting 
one's  life  run  away  in  pain,  imbecility,  aridity,  sand, 
and  chaos,  regardless  that  no  drop  flows  twice,  and 
that  one  is  committing  a  theft  and  an  atrocious  murder 
upon  one's  self.  Simply  because  we  are  everlastingly 
seeking  an  approbation  that  is  really  indifferent  to  us, 
and  are  not  brave  enough  to  say  boldly  in  the  face  of 
mankind  what  we  desire  and  demand.  Nothing  is  so 
holy  and  true  and  so  direct  a  gift  of  God  as  a  genuine 
attachment;  but  this  will  always  be  resisted  in  de- 
ference to  an  approved  cipher.  We  allow  ourselves  to 
be  burdened  with  what  is  most  foreign  to  us,  and  thus 
our  true  selves  are  lost .  .  .  .  " 

"Only  inclination  and  the  heart's  desires!  If  I 
cannot  live  for  them,  if  I  am  too  pitiful,  too  abject, 
too  down-trodden  and  misused,  then  I  will  hence- 
forward explore  them  in  myself  and  worship  them.  It 
is  God's  strong  will  in  the  heart — the  dark  heart, 
heaving  with  blood — that  has  no  name  among  us,  and 
therefore  we  cheat  ourselves,  until  it  is  dead." 


120  Rahel  Varnhagen 

Even  if  these  utterances  are  based  upon  many 
experiences,  others'  as  well  as  her  own,  it  is  never- 
theless probable  that  some  particular  neglect  of 
the  call  of  passion  was  in  Rahel' s  thoughts  when 
she  wrote  these  words.  But  if  it  was  what  is 
hinted  at  above,  then  it  is  certain  that  Rah  el's 
want  of  courage  was  not  due  merely  to  the  con- 
siderations she  mentions,  but,  as  with  many 
other  women,  to  the  conviction  that  she  lacked 
the  power  to  charm  which  makes  the  bold 
stroke  successful.  The  man  whose  love  Rahel 
was  to  keep,  must,  she  felt,  coalesce  with  and 
understand  her  soul. 

Here  lay  probably  the  focus  of  all  their  con- 
tradictions: that  between  northern  and  southern 
blood,  between  the  love  of  a  man  and  that  of  a 
woman  and  between  a  highly  developed  woman 
and  an  ordinary  man,  who  were  moreover  of 
different  races  and  nationalities.  And  finally 
the  contrast  between  two  widely  different  tem- 
peraments and  two  widely  different  conceptions 
of  love. 

It  is  this  last  antagonism  which  makes  Rand's 
misfortune  typical  of  the  developed  women  of  our 
time.  Rahel  was  one  of  the  ever-increasing  class 
of  women  who  no  doubt  have  their  share  of  sensu- 


Love  121 

ousness  but  do  not  try  to  win  the  man  by  means  of 
this,  desiring  rather  that  sensuous  unity  shall  be  a 
result  of  the  combined  flame  of  two  souls.  Men, 
on  the  other  hand,  feel  more  attracted,  and  be- 
lieve themselves  more  loved,  by  those  women 
who  by  the  power  of  their  own  sensuousness  awake 
that  of  the  man,  and  thus,  if  they  themselves 
possess  a  soul,  by  degrees  win  his  soul  also.  The 
purity  and  truth  of  Rahel's  nature  made  her  in- 
capable of  using  the  kind  of  means  by  which  such 
women  retain  and  dominate  men.  And  it  was 
Rahel's  unspeakable  torment  to  see  Urquijo's  feel- 
ing dwindle  through  what  she  felt  to  be  the 
strength  and  beauty  of  her  own.  Rahel's  love  also 
included  passion ;  but  this  was  only  the  surf  in  a 
sea  of  devotion  and  fidelity. 

From  Rahel's  words  one  can  understand  the 
nature  of  Urquijo's  complaints.  Among  the 
scenes  which  were  repeated  daily,  she  had  de- 
scribed one,  which  gives  us  an  idea  of  the  rest. 

They  were  walking  together  in  the  Thiergarten, 
when  Rahel  caught  sight  of  an  unusually  pretty 
woman,  unknown  to  her,  and  wanted  to  look  at 
her  more  closely.  This  interest  of  Rahel's  in  an- 
other than  himself  made  Urquijo  furious,  and 
when  Rahel  sighed  at  his  reproaches,  he  exclaimed : 


122  Rahel  Varnhagen 

"  Finckenstein  treated  you  badly  too,  you  ought  to 
be  used  to  it." 

At  these  words  Rahel  went  through  one  of  those 
moments  when  our  existence  breaks  in  pieces, 
moments  in  which  all  our  surroundings  are  im- 
pressed upon  us  with  the  utmost  clearness.  Rahel 
always  remembered  that  when  these  words  were 
spoken  they  were  standing  "in  the  depth  of  the 
wood,  facing  the  water,  in  the  evening  sun, "  and 
she  answered:  "If  those  words  had  been  spoken 
in  a  play,  the  hearers  would  have  shuddered  and 
burst  into  tears."  "That  is  true,"  he  replied. 
"But  that  ought  to  set  you  free  from  me  and 
show  you  that  we  cannot  live  together." 

Rahel  had  held  out  as  long  as  she  believed  in  his 
love,  had  even  held  out  when  he  said:  "  I  love  you 
but  do  not  respect  you' ' ;  said  that  he  believed  she 
deceived  him  with  others ;  said  that  she  did  not  love 
him.  But  when  at  last  he  said  that  he  respected 
her  but  did  not  love  her,  she  found  strength  to  free 
herself,  though  every  fibre  of  her  body  trembled 
with  pain  and  every  drop  of  her  blood  was  rilled 
with  the  charm  he  still  possessed  for  her  and  never 
lost. 

So  long  as  he  had  spoken  of  his  own  love,  of  his 
doubts  of  hers,  while  all  the  time  he  was  goading 


Love  123 

hers  to  madness  by  his  jealousy,  a  rupture  had 
appeared  to  her  impossible.  Now,  as  she  after- 
wards said,  she  found  courage,  but  only  in  in- 
dignation at  his  unworthy  treatment  of  her,  only 
in  the  conviction  that  now  "the  value  and  possi- 
bility of  her  existence"  were  at  stake,  although  it 
was  still  "the  purest  flame  that  consumed  her 
heart." 

"  Once  I  lived  entirely  for  one  person.  I  loved  him 
to  madness !  For  he,  his  aspect,  was  to  me  the  present 
and  the  future, — and  in  a  certain  sense  this  was  true. 
And  in  my  soul  I  never  thought  I  should  give  him  up. " 

"I  lied:  I  did  not  utter  my  heart's  demands,  the 
claims  of  my  person,  lest  I  should  hear  in  words  the 
murderous  No;  I  let  myself  be  smothered,  since  I 
would  not  be  pierced  through.  Miserable  cowardice! 
Unfortunate  being  that  I  was,  I  wished  to  defend  the 
life  of  my  heart;  I  placed  myself  in  front,  I  placed 
myself  behind,  I  lied  and  lied  and  lied." 

"Even  in  the  greatest  passion  one  ought  not  to 
allow  one's  self  to  be  torn  and  dragged  along  sode- 
gradingly  by  pain.  We  abandon  ourselves  to  love, 
whether  good  or  bad,  as  to  a  sea,  and  then  our  luck, 
strength  or  art  "bf  swimming  takes  us  over,  or  else  it 
swallows  us  up  as  its  own.  '  As  Goethe  says :  '  He  who 
abandons  himself  to  love,  does  he  take  any  thought  of 
his  life?/  .  ." 

' '  Then,  armed  for  murder,  I  seized  my  own  heart 
and  went,  as  though  out  of  life.  For  I  knew  it  was 
a  dark  death  I  was  going  to,  and  I  wrote:  I  choose 


124  Rahel  Varnhagen 

despair,  which  I  do  not  know.  It  was  a  slow  murder. 
And  there  arose  a  desolation  more  terrible  than  pain, 
rupture,  and  loss  of  the  beloved.  Blame  me,  as  I  my- 
self blame  this  cowardly  baseness.  But  consider  this: 
that  nature  had  given  him  a  fascination  for  me,  and 
thereby  given  me  an  infatuation,  which  the  clearest 
consciousness  of  thought  was  not  rapid  enough  to 
counteract.  The  impression  was  stronger.  That  is 
love." 

"All  this  life  has  been  snatched  from  me,  even  did 
I  carry  heaven  within  me.  ...  I  feel  a  whole 
flood  of  tears  in  my  breast  over  my  heart,  and  a  single 
thing  is  enough  to  remind  me  of  all.  Nothing  appears 
to  me  isolated  any  more:  I  feel  wholly  a  prisoner.  I 
do  not  console  myself  with  the  higher  life!  This 
would  not  exclude  a  beautiful  earthly  life.  Every 
moment  heightens  and  intensifies  my  intimate,  ever 
deeper  sense  of  the  inconceivable  loss ! — No  joy  reaches 
to  my  heart;  like  a  spectre  he  stands  outside  and 
closes  it  with  a  giant's  strength,  and  only  pain  comes 
in.  This  spectre,  this  distorted  image — I  love.  ..." 

"Oh,  this  one  favour  true  grief  grants  us,  when  she 
forces  upon  us  the  reflection  that  she  never  can  return, 
that  she  has  really  cut  us  off  from  that  part  of  our  life 
which  she  so  cruelly  tore.     So  it  has  been  with  me." 
[End  of  1806.] 

In  her  first  despair  Rahel  told  herself  that 
Urquijo  had  never  loved  her,  since  he  could  be  so 
blind  to  her  deepest  nature;  and  she  calls  both 
him  and  Finckenstein  merely  "shadows,  coloured 
by  my  fire. "  But  even  in  the  face  of  this  thought 


Love  125 

Rahel  had  the  strength  of  soul  not  to  wish  to  erase 
from  her  life  any  of  the  events  that  had  condemned 
her  to  remain  solitary,  though  people  crowded 
about  her,  and  to  "be  compelled  to  die  unsatis- 
fied, "  though  she  herself  had  a  world  to  give. 

"Pangs  of  the  heart  are  benefits,  love-sorrows, 
slighted  love,  bliss.  .  .  . 

' '  Therefore  I  regret  nothing.  And  I  repose  deliciously 
upon  the  torments  and  outrages  I  have  suffered  as 
though  upon  laurels  and  fairest  myrtle.  He  who 
probes  as  I  have  will  fare  no  better.  My  suffering 
is  too  human  and  too  great  for  a  little  wailing!" 

"Never  have  I  lived  and  never  said  what  life  is:  a 
love  which  does  not  turn  to  poison  or  remain  with  us 
as  pain. " 

Often  as  she  asks  herself,  like  countless  other 
women,  why  her  loftiest  feeling  has  been  the  most 
outraged,  she  yet  feels  in  her  heart  the  certainty 
that  is  made  up  of  innumerable,  indescribable, 
and  unutterable  things  and  that  cannot  be  de- 
stroyed by  brooding:  the  certainty  that  in  spite 
of  all  she  was  really  loved  by  Urquijo.  And  when, 
several  years  later,  he  again  visits  Rahel  and  she  is 
thus  prompted  to  read  his  letters  again,  she  feels 
that  these,  as  surely  as  her  own,  were  the  expres- 
sion of  a  real  love.  She  then  determined  to  put 


126  Rahel  Varnhagen 

to  him  the  question  which  she  had  turned  about 
like  a  dagger  in  her  soul  for  days  and  nights  with- 
out number,  whether  he  had  really  believed  that 
she  deceived  him?  When  Urquijo  vehemently 
protested  that  he  had  never  believed  it,  all  the 
horror  inspired  by  years  of  meaningless  pain  gath- 
ered in  Rand's  face  and  voice,  and  she  exclaimed: 

"  Then  why  did  you  say  so?  " 

Urquijo  did  not  answer  the  question,  but  de- 
clared in  the  greatest  agitation  that  for  one  who 
loves  there  is  no  peace;  that  he  in  particular  had  a 
very  unhappy  heart;  that  he  constantly  felt  him- 
self to  be  the  least  handsome,  the  least  amiable, 
the  least  significant  of  men,  and  therefore  could 
not  believe  in  a  woman's  love. 

That  Rahel  calls  this  his  "old  litany"  shows 
what  an  important  part  his  want  of  self-confidence 
had  played  in  the  conflict,  and  that  she  under- 
estimated the  genuineness  of  Urquijo's  suffering. 
He  declared,  for  instance,  again  and  again  that  it 
seemed  incredible  to  him  that  such  a  rare  being 
as  Rahel  could  love  a  man  like  him.  Thus  Rahel, 
who  was  hoping  for  a  drop  of  consolation,  that  he 
might  at  last  see  and  acknowledge  her  love,  did 
not  obtain  it.  As  she  herself  says,  Urquijo 
thought  she  wanted  reparation  for  her  feminine 


Love  127 

virtue,  and  that  he  gave  her.  But  what  she  was 
longing  for  with  her  whole  burning  soul — repara- 
tion for  her  love — was  not  forthcoming. 
/  And  the  idea  never  occurred  to  her,  who  saw  him 
glorious  as  a  young  god,  that  with  him  as  with  her 
the  frail  wings  of  self-confidence  had  perhaps  been 
broken  in  childhood. 

The  only  defence  she  found  for  him  was  that  he 
had  killed  her  as  innocently  as  "the  axe  that  be- 
heads a  great  man,"  since  with  his  nature  he 
could  not  even  divine  the  existence  of  such  a 
being  as  she  was! 

But  she  did  not  thereby  explain  the  mystery, 
she  only  removed  it  to  the  sphere  of  the 
unconscious. 

The  delicate  threads  that  with  irresistible  power 
bind  one  human  being  to  another  were  spun 
thousands  of  years  before  we  were  born,  by  in- 
numerable beings  that  have  gone  before  and 
countless  mysterious  influences. 

When,  in  later  years,  others  were  surprised  at 

Rahel's  love  of  a  man  with  so  many  defects,  she 

I  replied  that  no  doubt  she  had  always  seen  his 

faults — for  love,  is  not,  as  people  thought,  the 

\blind  god,  but  the  most  clear-sighted  one — but 

that  such  a  perception  had  nothing  to  do  with  love. 


128  Rahel  Varnhagen 

It  was  true  that  she  had  tried  to  "dissect  this 
love,  so  that  it  might  never  come  to  life  again." 
But  she  had  not  the  strength  to  do  it,  for  she  was 
seized  by  "the  new  European  love"  in  all  its 
fateful  might. 

"I  believe  that  if  the  director  of  this  earth  had  wished 
to  give  an  example  of  this  kind  of  love  in  all  its  trans- 
formations and  possibilities,  in  its  highest  power, 
genuineness,  and  purity,  combined  with  the  highest 
self-knowledge  and  thus  in  the  highest  degree  con- 
scious of  its  own  torments,  so  as  to  reflect  every  pain 
from  the  whole  compass  of  the  soul,  as  though  it  were 
furnished  with  facets, — I  believe  that  I  should  have 
sufficed  for  this." 

She  is  still  without  an  answer  to  her  own  question, 
why  it  should  have  been  this  man  of  all  others  who 
for  the  first  and  only  time  in  her  life  made  her  feel 
"that  fever  of  love,  that  perfect  satisfaction  in  the 
contemplation  of  his  person. " 

"This  person,  this  being  has  exercised  the  greatest 
magic  over  me,  and  consequently  exercises  it  still.  To 
him  I  gave  .  .  .  my  whole  heart,  and  this  can  only 
be  given  back  by  love  and  worthiness,  otherwise  one 
never  gets  it  again.  Is  there  then  a  magic  of  curses? 
Can  one  devote  one's  self  to  a  devil?  When  he  left 
the  room  I  fell  down  with  a  loud  cry,  my  heart  burst- 
ting  against  my  ribs,  and  asked  God  whether  one  can 


Love  129 

make  away  with  one's  heart,  for  he  knew  that  without 
a  heart  one  can  live  no  longer. 

"  .  .  .It  seems  as  though  he  must  leave  me  some- 
thing that  he  has  of  me,  and  as  though  his  love  could 
still  kindle  and  heal  me.  ...  Until  I  can  love 
some  one  more  deeply  ...  I  am  deprived  of  the 
part  of  me  that  is  necessary  to  my  happiness,  the 
source  of  my  brightest,  most  intimate  being  is  buried 
under  heavy  curses  and  magic. " 

"Ah,  eternal  fate,  thou  wilt  remain  true,  so  long  as 
the  smallest  fibre  is  left  of  me.  True  thou  wilt  ever 
have  been!  True!  True  were  the  eternal  things  I 
eternally  wrote  to  the  unfeeling  one  .  .  .  true  that 
I  found  the  symbol  of  my  senses;  that  I  threw  away 
my  heart  to  him  for  ever ;  true  that  he  did  not  under- 
stand me;  true  the  frightful  dissonance.  How  few 
love!  Of  whole  generations  only  one.  .  ." 

"  Oh,  what  a  disease  is  love!  How  much  caprice, 
how  much  folly  there  is  in  it.  .  .  .  And  this  is 
our  real  love — not  the  first — wherein  not  a  speck  of  us 
remains  behind,  wherein  we  honestly  give  the  last 
drop  of  our  blood.  It  only  remains  to  suffer  honestly." 

Rand's  confessions  of  Urquijo's  continued 
power  over  her,  here  quoted  and  in  part  addressed 
to  Varnhagen,  have  an  interesting  parallel  in  a 
letter  which  Mme.  de  Stae'l,  then  married  to 
Rocca,  wrote  to  Benjamin  Constant;  a  letter  in 
which  she  indirectly  tells  him  that  so  long  as  her 
heart  beats,  he  will  have  a  place  in  that  heart 
which  no  one  else  has  had  or  can  have. 

9 


130  Rahel  Varnhagen 

That  a  certain  voice,  a  certain  smile,  a  certain 
look,  a  certain  temperament  above  all  other  be- 
ings, near  or  far,  can  force  the  one  who  loves  them 
to  remain  within  their  magic  circle,  even  when  that 
magic  circle  is  a  circle  of  hell — that  is  the  enigma. 
And  Rahel  pondered  over  it  as  long  as  she  lived. 

But  pondering  may  make  the  hair  white  with- 
out bringing  a  spark  of  light  into  the  irrationality 
of  love's  nature.  Nor  did  Rahel  gain  from  all  her 
brooding  over  the  fate  of  her  love  any  knowledge 
but  this:  "I  know  the  disease,  I  have  enjoyed  it. " 

In  1807  she  still  felt,  not  "as  one  wounded,  but 
as  one  destroyed,"  and  knew  that  she  could  never 
"grow  together."  But  she  was  "not  dead  to 
contact  with  the  world,"  although  she  no  longer 
possessed  that  point  of  the  soul  "to  which  life 
flows."  Yet  by  degrees  she  felt  that  she  was 
alive,  capable  of  enjoyment  and  amusement;  in- 
deed, she  says  that  she  had  grafted  on  her  heart 
many  a  liking  that  she  had  no  name  for.  She 
begins  to  feel  "calmness,  broadness  of  vision,  and 
joy"  through  contemplation  of  herself.  By  de- 
grees new  growth  has  sprung  up  in  the  desert  she 
calls  her  heart;  she  has  begun  to  find  out  that 
"there  is  a  clearness  and  happiness  in  and  through 


Love  131 

ourselves";  that  a  heart  full  of  "maltreated  love" 
may  return  to  itself,  to  "its  own  inner  country." 
Indeed,  she  feels  that  "so  long  as  one  lives,  one 
loves,  when  one  has  once  loved.  And  this  afflic- 
tion is  moreover  one  of  the  best.  I  do  not  resist 
my  heart :  therein  lies  my  art. " 

Rahel  was  not  one  of  those  poor,  inert,  and  self- 
centred  natures  that  insist  upon  sorrowing,  that 
tear  open  their  wounds  as  soon  as  they  begin  to 
close. 

A  woman  who  in  spite  of  all  her  sufferings  pre- 
serves her  vivacity,  who  has  "a  gay  spirit  but  a 
sad  heart,"  usually  exercises  a  great  attraction 
upon  youth.  And  just  at  this  time  Rahel  gained 
a  new  intimate  in  a  young  man  who,  like  David 
Veit,  remained  only  a  friend,  but  was  a  friend  in 
the  fullest  sense  of  the  word.  To  him,  as  to  Veit, 
many  of  Rahel's  most  significant  letters  were 
written. 

This  young  jnan  was  Alexander  von  Marwitz, 
belonging  to  a  noble  family  whose  estate  was  near 
Berlin.  He  was  twenty-two  when  he  made  Ra- 
hel's acquaintance  in  1809,  and  had  lately  aban- 
doned a  military  career,  which  was  not  to  his  taste, 
in  order  to  live  on  his  estate  as  an  agriculturist 


132  Rahel  Varnhagen 

and  scholar.  But,  like  most  young  men  of  a 
serious  turn  of  mind  at  his  age,  he  was  rendered 
unhappy  by  the  gulf  between  his  ideal  will  and  the 
reality  by  which  he  was  surrounded,  between  his 
eager  young  powers  and  the  insignificant  aims  to 
which  he  could  direct  them.  And  his  melancholy 
took  the  form  of  thoughts  of  suicide. 

In  this  gloom  he  found  help  in  Rahel,  of  whom 
he  wrote  in  his  admiring  gratitude:  "She  must 
surely  be  the  greatest  woman  now  on  earth. " 

She  helped  him  not  only  with  sympathy  in  his 
suffering,  but  by  letting  him  feel  that  he  was 
necessary  to  her.  She  taught  him  that  natures 
"with  the  double  gifts,  the  twofold  spirit"  must 
learn  to  bear  solitude  and  find  their  consolation  in 
working  for  others,  for  the  life  of  one  who  does  no- 
thing but  complain  is  a  miserable  one.  No  doubt 
it  was  true  that  the  time  offered  no  opportunity  for 
a  great  achievement,  but  it  remained  for  all  "to 
do  well  what  lay  nearest. " 

' '  You  cannot  escape  the  age.  Every  one  is  bound  to 
his  time.  Our  time  is  that  of  consciousness,  mirroring 
itself  to  infinity,  even  to  vertigo.  .  .  ." 

"To  live,  love,  study,  be  diligent,  marry,  if  it  so 
turns  out,  to  perform  every  trifling  act  properly  and 
with  life,  that  is  in  any  case  to  have  lived.  ..." 

But  in  order  to  impart  this  understanding  and  this 


Love  133 

advice,  Rahel  herself  had  had  to  gain  the  wisdom  she 
compresses  into  such  words  as  these : 

' '  The  hardened  heart,  the  soul  prepared  for  every- 
thing, which  has  nothing  left  but  its  own  conscience, 
can  await  its  fate  from  this  inmost  point  of  being, 
relying  on  itself." 

"There  is  a  universe,  in  it  we  develop.  And  it 
matters  not  at  all  what  fate  is  ours,  when  we  have  ar- 
rived at  the  perception  that  development  is  our  fate. " 

What  is  here  quoted  shows  how  Rahel  healed 
her  own  wounds.  And  to  help  her  friend  to  per- 
ceive that  a  human  being  can  bear  greater  pain 
than  his  own  youthful  Weltschmerz,  she  did 
not  shrink  from  revealing  to  him  her  deepest 
sufferings. 

She  was  really  successful  in  saving  her  friend, 
of  whom  she  says  that  his  presence  had  become 
to  her  "what  the  eye  is  to  the  world,"  so  much 
consolation  and  joy  had  he  brought  her  during 
a  companionship,  the  nature  of  which  she  thus 
characterised:  "We  live  like  two  students,  one  of 
whom  is  a  woman." 

And  it  was  not  as  a  suicide  but  as  a  hero,  in  the 
struggle  for  liberty  of  1813,  that  Marwitz  ended 
his  life. 

3 

While  Rahel  was  thus  helping  others  she  was 


134  Rahel  Varnhagen 

still  herself  a  sufferer.  After  the  great  volcanic 
eruption  she  wrote:  "There  will  always  be  a 
Herculaneum  to  explore." 

She  was  still  buried  in  the  ruins  when  she  heard 
outside  her  grave  a  young  voice  sing  an  alluring 
song  of  new  life. 

It  was  during  the  agitated  period  of  Rahel's 
relations  with  Urquijo  that  Varnhagen  saw  her 
for  the  first  time  at  a  house  in  Berlin,  where  he 
was  tutor.  He  regarded  the  celebrated  Rahel  with 
interest,  but  at  a  distance;  probably  she  hardly 
noticed  the  youth  of  eighteen,  otherwise  than  as  a 
member  of  the  group  of  literary  young  men  to 
which  her  brother  Leopold  belonged. 

Varnhagen  von  Ense  was  born  at  Dusseldorf  on 
February  21,  1785.  His  father  was  a  medical 
man,  and  at  his  death  the  fifteen-year-old  boy 
determined  to  follow  the  same  profession.  But 
lack  of  means  delayed  his  studies,  and  before  they 
were  finished  he  had  changed  his  plans  more  than 
once. 

His  second  post  as  tutor  was  at  Hamburg.  And 
there  he  fell  in  love  with  the  mother  of  his  pupils, 
Fanny  Herz,  a  widow  and  several  years  his  senior. 
As  she  returned  his  inclination,  it  led  to  a  secret 


Love  135 

engagement.  This  lasted  during  the  years  of  his 
studentship,  so  that  he  was  still  engaged  to  Fanny 
Herz  when  in  1807  he  met  Rahel  for  the  second 
time,  again  in  her  circle  of  acquaintance  in  Berlin. 
She  at  once  made  a  powerful  impression  on  him, 
and  his  presentiment  of  her  unique  excellence 
became  certainty  when  he  saw  the  unqualified 
admiration,  nay,  reverence,  with  which  his  great 
teacher  Schleiermacher  treated  Rahel.  Varn- 
hagen  afterwards  saw  her  at  Fichte's  lectures. 
But  it  was  not  until  the  spring  of  1808  that  he 
ventured  one  day  to  approach  Rahel  in  the  course 
of  a  walk  and  to  enter  into  a  conversation,  in  which 
he  succeeded  in  interesting  her  so  much  that  she 
asked  him  to  call. 

Rahel,  who  was  then  thirty-seven,  at  first  looked 
upon  the  twenty-three-year-old  Varnhagen  as  a 
young  man  whom,  like  Marwitz,  she  could  assist 
in  the  battle  of  life.  But  she  soon  found  that  her 
experience  with  Bokelmann  was  repeated,  and  that 
a  soulful  youth  gave  his  enthusiasm  the  name  of 
love.  And,  as  before,  she  regarded  this  erotically- 
tinted  enthusiasm  as  a  transient  emotion  and  at 
first  could  only  herself  feel  that  calm  sort  of  love 
which  consisted  in  joy  over  the  youth  himself  and 
gratitude  for  his  sympathy. 


136  Rahel  Varnhagen 

But  the  result  was  different  and  Varnhagen 
acquired  an  importance  in  her  life  which  surpassed 
that  of  Bokelmann  as  much  as  Urquijo's  im- 
portance surpassed  that  of  Finckenstein. 

Varnhagen  was  one  of  those  men,  rare  then  as 
now,  to  whom  the  element  of  soul  in  love  out- 
weighs, or  at  least  counterbalances,  that  of  the 
senses;  to  whom  psychological  interest  is  the 
strongest  intellectual  passion,  and  in  whom 
mental  receptivity  is  greater  than  creative  power. 
Goethe  calls  Varnhagen  a  "separating,  searching, 
discriminating,  and  criticising  nature, "  and  this 
description  covers  a  whole  class.  It  is  in  general 
men  of  this  type  who  form  the  little  group  just 
mentioned — those  who  love  the  feminine  personal- 
ity. Exceptions  may  no  doubt  be  found,  above 
all,  Goethe.  But  as  a  general  rule  men  who  are 
full  of  their  own  force  are  not  transported  in 
their  whole  being  by  the  feminine  life  of  the  soul 
and  feminine  qualities.  A  man  who  is  power- 
fully creative  and  sunk  in  his  own  world  does 
not  often  afford  the  woman  he  loves  the  hap- 
piness of  feeling  herself  understood  and  appre- 
ciated in  her  most  personal  qualities;  to  him  she 
is  always  the  sexual  creature.  The  unproductive, 


Love  137 

or  but  slightly  productive  observer  more  frequently 
proves  an  eager  listener  to  a  woman's  soul,  more 
delicately  responsive,  more  rapidly  vibrating. 
Such  men  often  have  many  women  friends  and, 
if  their  outward  appearance  is  not  unmanly, 
they  also  inspire  profound  erotic  feelings.  The 
feminine  life  of  the  soul  has  for  them  the  same 
attraction  as  the  physical  woman  for  the  mascu- 
line majority;  for  they  are  provided  with  a  new 
sense:  a  sense  of  the  woman-soul.  Often  it  is 
men  of  just  this  kind  who  in  youth  do  not  feel 
attracted  by  young  girls.  To  their  own  refined 
sensitiveness,  their  intellectual  maturity,  their 
passion  for  culture,  above  all  culture  of  the  soul, 
their  interest  in  psychological  inquiry,  young 
girls  appear  too  undeveloped  or  indeterminate  or 
insignificant.  And  this  is  even  more  the  case 
since,  before  the  age  of  twenty,  and  often  even 
longer,  the  most  soulful  young  women  conceal 
the  individuality  they  are  forming  as  shyly  as 
certain  buds  conceal  their  colour  until  the  flower 
is  fully  open.  In  women  of  a  maturer  age,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  young  men  we  are  speaking  of 
find  more  readily  the  completed  personal  charac- 
ter, the  complicated  life  of  the  soul,  intensified  by 
experience,  the  refinement  of  sensation,  the  many- 


138  Rahel  Varnhagen 

sided  culture,  which  to  them  form  the  greatest 
attraction  in  a  feminine  being.  And  since  women 
in  our  time,  owing  to  the  richer,  freer  life  they 
are  able  to  lead,  preserve  both  their  outward 
and  inward  youthfulness  better  than  formerly, 
love  affairs  and  marriages  between  men  of  this 
type,  but  also  of  other  types,  and  women  older 
than  themselves  are  becoming  more  and  more 
usual. 

No  sign  of  the  times  is  more  significant  of  the 
evolution  of  man's  love  than  this.  For  this  love 
has  then,  in  most  cases,  run  the  same  course  as 
that  of  the  soulful  woman ;  it  has  first  kindled  the 
soul,  and  the  flame  of  the  soul  has  kindled  the 
senses. 

No  doubt  it  happens  not  unfrequently  that 
such  a  man  is  seized  in  his  maturer  years  with  love 
for  a  young  woman.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
the  race  this  is  even  desirable,  and  sometimes, 
perhaps,  the  older  woman  is  prepared  to  have  to 
repay,  by  a  final  renunciation,  the  second  spring- 
time her  life  has  received.  In  any  case,  connec- 
tions of  this  kind  between  younger  men  and  older 
women  often  assist  in  a  high  degree  the  develop- 
ment of  both.  Nietzsche  went  so  far  as  to  re- 
commend them.  They  are  only  "unnatural," 


Love  139 

as  the  thoughtless  call  them,  when  the  woman  re- 
tains the  man,  either  by  the  brute  force  of  the 
law  or  by  the  more  delicate  means  her  grief  can 
command.  So  long  as  coercive  marriage  exists — 
and  until  human  beings  have  reached  that  stage 
of  development  when  they  will  no  more  retain 
with  them  a  loved  one  with  the  corpse  of  his  love 
within  him,  than  they  would  keep  his  dead  body 
itself — so  long  will  unions  between  men  and  wo- 
men, where  the  difference  in  age  is  great,  be  never- 
theless frequently  unnatural,  not  in  their  early, 
but  in  their  later  stages.  But  in  our  time  we  see 
more  and  more  often  an  enduring  happiness 
achieved  either  by  an  older  woman  and  a  younger 
man  or  the  reverse,  when  these  persons  possess 
a  true  sense  of  responsibility  with  regard  to  the 
success  of  their  life's  experiment  and  a  true  per- 
ception of  the  means  whereby  love  may  be  kept 
alive. 

In  these,  as  in  so  many  other  respects,  Rahel 
was  far  ahead  of  her  time.  She  understood  from 
the  very  beginning  that  perfect  mutual  freedom 
and  frankness  are  the  only  ties  that  bind. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  power  over  women  of  the 
men  just  described  lies  in  their  boundless  need  of 


140  Rahel  Varnhagen 

women.  These  Don  Juans  of  the  soul  are  not 
wholly  captured,  as  Rahel  said  of  Varnhagen 
later,  by  any  particular  woman;  but  the  whole 
female  sex  captures  them  all  the  more  irresistibly. 
Everywhere  they  find  women  to  whom  they  can 
confess  their  adventures,  complain  of  their  suffer- 
ings ;  who  console  them  when  their  sensitiveness  is 
wounded,  support  them  when  their  self-confidence 
fails.  Woman  is  the  mirror  in  which  their  self- 
contemplation  shows  them  their  own  image  magni- 
fied, or  the  oil  their  working-machinery  cannot 
dispense  with. 

And  this  is  confirmed  in  Varnhagen's  relations 
to  Rahel.  He  met  her  at  the  time  when,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  wide  and  gracious  receptivity  of  his 
own  nature,  he  also  had  that  of  youth;  when  his 
many-sided  culture  and  intellectual  maturity  were 
far  in  advance  of  his  years,  while  his  personality 
was  still  a  chaos  of  mutually  conflicting  pro- 
pensities, desires,  and  feelings.  In  the  matter  of  a 
career,  no  less  than  in  that  of  his  view  of  life  and 
his  love,  he  was  seeking  that  which  accorded  with 
his  true  nature.  And  now  through  Rahel  he  felt 
himself  "as  though  raised  at  a  stroke  to  a  higher 
plane  of  life."  He  was  confronted  by  a  nature 
that  was  the  opposite  of  his  own ;  a  nature  as  pro- 


Love  141 

nounced  as  it  was  complete  in  its  individuality. 
This  nature  was,  moreover,  that  of  a  woman,  a 
woman  whose  perfect  frankness  permitted  him  to 
look  into  the  depths  of  her  soul  and  whose  bound- 
less generosity  could  only  be  compared  with  her 
inexhaustible  wealth. 

Varnhagen  thus  describes  his  first  impression  of 
Rahel:  "  A  slight,  graceful  figure,  small,  but  strongly 
built,  with  strikingly  small  hands  and  feet.  Her  face, 
surrounded  by  a  wealth  of  black  hair,  gave  evidence 
of  intellectual  superiority ;  the  rapid,  but  firm  glances 
of  her  dark  eyes  left  one  in  doubt  whether  they  gave 
or  received  more;  an  expression  of  suffering  lent  a 
gentle  charm  to  the  clear  features.  She  moved  almost 
like  a  shadow  in  her  dark  dress,  but  freely  and  firmly, 
and  her  greeting  was  as  unconstrained  as  it  was 
friendly.  But  what  surprised  me  most  was  her  voice, 
sonorous,  soft,  sounding  from  the  inmost  soul,  and  the 
most  wonderful  speech  I  have  ever  heard.  In  easy 
unpretending  sentences,  of  the  most  original  humour 
and  turn  of  mind,  were  united  naivete"  and  wit, 
severity  and  amiability,  and  all  this  was  infused  with  a 
deep  veracity,  hard  as  iron,  so  that  even  the  strongest 
felt  at  once  that  it  would  not  be  easy  to  twist  or  break 
anything  in  her  utterances.  At  the  same  time  a 
beneficent  warmth  of  human  kindness  and  sympathy 
allowed  even  the  humblest  to  rejoice  in  her  presence. " 

And  Varnhagen  describes  their  early  intercourse 
thus:  "Infinitely  charming  and  fruitful  was  this 
springtime  of  an  enchanting  companionship,  to  which 


142  Rahel  Varnhagen 

I  too  contributed  the  best  I  had ....  Our  confi- 
dential intimacy  increased  day  by  day.  .  .  .  Far 
from  meeting  with  approval  in  everything,  I  was  often 
blamed,  and  could  guess  at  further  displeasure  which 
was  left  unspoken ;  yet  I  could  feel  that  her  sympathy 
for  me  did  not  suffer  thereby,  but  rather  increased, 
and  this  gain  prevented  me  from  taking  the  rest  to 
heart.  ...  It  was  vouchsafed  to  me  to  look  into 
the  richest  life .  .  .  .  " 

.  .  .  "  This  life  appeared  indestructibly  young  and 
strong,  not  only  as  regards  the  mighty  spirit  that 
soared  freely  above  the  waves  of  daily  life,  but  also  as 
to  the  heart,  the  senses,  the  veins,  the  whole  bodily  ex- 
istence, which  was  all  immersed  in  freshness  and 
brightness;  and  the  purest,  most  refreshing  present 
stood  between  a  perfected  past  and  "a  future  rich 
in  hope." 

There  was  nothing  irresistible  in  Varnhagen' s 
exterior.  He  was  tall  and  fair,  with  wavy  hair 
about  a  lofty,  intelligent  forehead;  blue-gray, 
observant,  but  yet  gentle  eyes;  a  delicate  nose 
with  sensitive  nostrils;  a  still  more  delicate  and 
sensitive  mouth.  His  whole  appearance  was 
agreeable  without  being  out  of  the  common; 
the  weakness  that  the  face  exhibits  in  later  years 
was  probably  even  more  apparent  in  youth.  Such 
as  he  was,  he  exercised  no  fascination  upon  Rahel. 
She  herself  has  said  that  her  wounded  and  out- 
raged heart  had  no  strength  to  love  alone;  that  it 


Love  143 

was  his  love  that  won  her;  that  she  was  ashamed  so 
long  as  he  loved  alone,  but  when  she  saw  that  he 
really  loved,  that  he  had  found  the  inmost  con- 
tinuity of  her  being,  then  she  on  her  side  did  not 
restrain  her  heart.  But,  she  continues,  her  feeling 
was  now  not  only  gratitude  for  his  gifts  but  emo- 
tion at  his  love.  This  would  have  been  repugnant 
to  her,  if  she  had  not  also  discovered  his  "love- 
charm"  ;  if  her  heart's  highest  flame  had  not  united 
with  his.  Rahel's  last  love  is  a  confirmation  of 
the  Danish  poet  Paludan-Muller's  words:  that 
our  heart  is  like  the  violin,  which,  once  broken, 
gives  a  better  tone  but  a  weaker  sound. 

She  had,  of  course,  twice  encountered  love. 
But  the  first  time  it  had  not  been  so  strong  that 
the  jealousy  and  prejudice  of  petty  feminine 
souls  could  not  conquer  it ;  nor  was  it  so  fiery  the 
second  time  that  her  lover's  own  jealousy  and  pre- 
judice could  not  quench  it.  She  had,  of  course, 
had  many  friends.  But  these  had  sought  her  on 
their  own  account,  because  they  needed  conso- 
lation or  strength  or  stimulation.  In  a  word,  she 
had  either  been  loved  without  being  understood, 
or  understood  without  being  loved;  sought  after 
and  delighted  in  like  a  great  and  rare  phenomenon. 
But  no  one  had  ever  surrounded  her  with  the  feel- 


144  Rahel  Varnhagen 

ing  that  delivers  us  from  loneliness,  that  is  a 
loving  comprehension  of  what  is  unique  and  in- 
dividual in  our  soul.  In  her  deepest  sorrow  Rahel 
had  learned  that  people  understand  each  other  so 
little  that  they  do  not  even  hear  the  wailing 
"that  bursts  forth  from  the  breast  of  each, "  or,  if 
we  hear  it,  we  cannot  help  even  those  we  love 
the  best,  whom  we  wholly  understand,  and  whose 
sufferings  torture  us. 

.  .  .  "We  are  lonely.  This  cell,  in  which  every 
human  soul  is  held  and  where  love  now  and  then 
marries  life  to  life,  this  is  what  makes  us  grow  stiff. " 

But  of  all  the  manifestations  of  Rahel's  feel- 
ing of  loneliness,  none  is  more  significant  than  the 
fact  that  she,  who  "was  a  disciple  of  Shakespeare, " 
was  early  and  often  occupied  with  thoughts  of 
death.  But  never  had  her  own  death  moved  her; 
never  had  she  thought  that  her  death  "would  hurt 
a  single  person.  From  you,"  she  wrote  to  Varn- 
hagen, "I  learned  it;  and  it  was  for  the  first  time 
in  my  life  that  I  thought  it  and  knew  that  I  had 
thought  it.  So  lonely  have  I  lived. " 

Varnhagen,  the  born  student  of  human  nature, 
not  only  observed  Rahel  with  the  most  eager  in- 
terest, but  absorbed  her  with  the  most  implicit 


Love  145 

devotion.  With  a  knowledge  of  self  extraordinary 
for  his  years,  he  was  aware  of  his  own  fundamental 
defect:  "My  spirit  came  quite  poor  into  the 
world  ...  no  spring  wells  up  in  me.  ...  I  am 
empty."  But  with  equal  clearness  he  perceives 
his  chief  qualities:  receptivity,  intelligent  and 
profound  assimilation  of  the  thing  received, 
strength  to  admire,  and  strength  to  wait. 

"I  am  a  slender  thread  by  the  side  of  your  beautiful, 
tall  tree,  I  know  it.  And  I  almost  despair  at  my  want 
of  strength,  which  is  thus  placed  by  love  beside  your 
bubbling,  strong-flowing  life;  I  feel  my  poverty  in 
every  sense  through  your  richness.  ..." 

"But  in  this  complete  emptiness  I  always  remain 
open :  a  ray  of  sunshine,  a  movement,  a  form  of  beauty 
or  merely  of  strength  never  escapes  me;  I  simply 
wait  for  something  to  happen,  like  a  beggar  by  the 
roadside.  ,  .  . " 

"You  traverse  every  sphere,  whilst  I  move  only  in  a 
few.  .  .  .  But  when  you  visit  mine,  you  will  al- 
ways find  me,  and  if  you  enter  a  house  where  I  cannot 
follow,  I  shall  wait  quietly  by  the  door.  .  .  .  " 

The  last-named  quality  is  the  rarest  of  all, 
among  people  in  general  and  young  people  in 
particular.  It  depends  upon  the  power  of  losing 
one's  self  so  completely  in  the  person  one  loves 
that  one  can  wait  with  absolute  confidence  the 


146  Rahel  Varnhagen 

unravelling  through  that  person  herself  of  what- 
ever may  seem  unreasonable,  unjust,  or  incom- 
prehensible in  her.  And  Rahel  caused  Varnhagen, 
as  he  did  her,  not  a  few  difficulties,  especially  by 
her  unqualified  frankness.  It  is  characteristic  of 
this  that  several  of  her  already  quoted  confidences 
on  the  subject  of  her  feeling  for  Urquijo  were 
made  to  Varnhagen,  between  1808  and  1812, 
and  equally  characteristic  that  she  often  directed 
her  penetrating  criticism  against  Varnhagen  him- 
self. But  his  belief  in  Rahel  stood  every  test. 

Rahel,  who  felt  too  exhausted  by  suffering  to 
believe  in  the  possibility  of  a  personal  happiness, 
awoke  day  after  day  with  growing  wonder  and 
emotion  at  this  new  thing  that  had  come  to  her. 

During  the  summer  of  1808,  she  lived  at  Char- 
lottenburg,  which  was  then  rural.  Varnhagen  went 
there  every  afternoon  to  exchange  ideas  and  ex- 
periences, while  they  walked  in  the  cool,  flower- 
scented  park,  or  beneath  the  avenues  and  along 
the  bank  of  the  Spree,  or  on  the  shady  green  be- 
fore the  house.  The  moon  rose,  the  stars  came 
out,  but  their  conversation  continued,  with  or 
without  words.  And  Rahel  felt  the  atmosphere 
about  her  transformed  by  this  intimate  under- 


Love  147 

standing,  which  every  soulful  person  dreams  of, 
seeks  in  friendship  and  love,  and  hardly  ever  finds. 
But  when  we  have  found  it,  there  is  no  more 
need  of  disguises  or  masks,  protective  armour  or 
weapons  of  defence.  Then  we  are  transported  to 
Paradise,  where  the  air  is  always  mild,  naked- 
ness always  natural,  weapons  always  needless,  for 
there  we  move  like  a  happy  child  in  the  warmth 
of  loving  eyes.  The  richer,  the  more  complicated 
a  person's  nature  is,  the  more  difficult  is  it  for 
him  to  find  this  all-loving  comprehension.  But 
if  he  finds  it,  it  will  transform  existence  as  the 
spirit  of  a  walk  is  transformed,  when  we  leave 
the  hot,  dusty  highway  and  turn  into  the  mossy, 
sun-flecked,  perfumed  woods;  as  the  atmosphere 
is  transformed  when  a  leaden  sky  is  cleft  and  a 
flood  of  sunlight  is  poured  over  the  earth ;  as  the 
landscape  is  transformed  when,  at  a  sudden  turn 
of  the  road,  we  leave  the  Alps  behind  us  and  see 
Italy  at  our  feet,  in  the  season  of  vines  and  roses. 
He  who  has  experienced  this,  if  only  for  a  day, 
can  divine  what  Rahel  felt,  when  she  first  heard 
steps  approaching  "the  calm,  unvisited  lake  in  the 
depths  of  the  soul,"  when  she  no  longer  felt  her- 
self lonely,  when  by  degrees  she  was  filled  by  the 
sunshine  of  all-embracing,  all-penetrating  sympa- 


148  Rahel  Varnhagen 

thy,  when  she  encountered  a  longing  that  desired 
her  being  in  all  its  transitions,  with  all  its  an- 
omalies and  mutability.  Rahel  speaks  of  their 
companionship,  "our  dear,  gay,  childish,  happy 
intercourse,  our  running,  eating,  enjoying  the  air 
and  hunting  for  pleasure;  our  unassuming  exist- 
ence without  plan  or  aim  .  .  .";  and  what  she 
lays  stress  on  as  the  best  of  all  was  that  it  never 
occurred  to  them  "  to  try  to  imagine  anything. " 

Before  she  had  found  Varnhagen  she  wrote:  "I 
know  excellent  people.  And  they  are  friendly  to- 
wards me  and  like  to  see  me  as  they  would  look  upon 
a  rock,  a  mass  of  clouds,  a  stormy  sea  or  the  like. 
None  of  them  harbours  the  human  being  in  me,  with 
whom,  however,  they  all  seek  shelter." 
...  "  You  are  the  only  one  in  the  whole  world  who 
has  ever  been  fond  of  me,  who  has  treated  me  as  I  treat 
others.  Yes,  I  gladly  confess  this  to  you  with  all  the 
impulse  of  gratitude :  of  you  I  have  learned  to  be  loved, 
and  you  have  created  something  new  in  me.  It  is 
not  vanity,  .  .  .  that  continually  penetrates  my  be- 
ing with  satisfaction,  that  you  must  know — you,  whose 
right  understanding  of  me  forces  the  tears  to  my  eyes — 
it  is  at  last  the  healthy,  strong,  true,  real  conception  of 
the  soul.  //  takes  and  gives,  and  so  a  true  life  is  born 
to  me !  Rejoice,  if  you  really  value  me  and  look  upon 
my  life  and  being  as  something  out  of  the  ordinary: 
you  have  put  the  stamp  of  humanity  on  it. " 

"What  I  love  in  you  is,  that  you  appreciate  my 


Love  149 

nature  and  that  your  appreciation  reveals  itself,  acts 
and  expresses  itself  as  it  does.  I  return  your  love 
with  extreme  affection,  as  you  have  seen  a  hundred 
times.  ..." 

And  later :  "Only  one  in  the  whole  world  recognises 
my  claim  to  be  a  personality,  and  does  not  wish  merely 
to  use  and  swallow  up  some  part  or  other  of  me ;  loves 
me  as  nature  created  me  and  fate  distorted  me; 
understands  this  fate;  is  willing  to  leave  me  the  re- 
mainder of  my  life,  and  to  gladden  it  and  draw  it 
nearer  to  heaven;  and,  for  the  happiness  of  being  my 
friend,  will  be,  do,  and  leave  all  for  me.  This  is  the 
man  who  is  called  my  bridegroom." 

Varnhagen  describes  his  impression  of  that  sum- 
mer in  the  words :  "  I  feel  as  if  I  had  spent  the  sum- 
mer in  Athens. "  In  Rahel's  conversation  he  had 
found  the  loftiest  speculation,  "as  this  must  take 
form  in  life,  the  inmost  marrow  of  philosophy," 
and  he  felt  that  he  came  from  her  with  liberated 
powers,  with  "a  newly-illuminated  nature";  that 
she  had  revealed  to  him  what  was  deepest  and 
best  in  himself.  "Your  influence  flows  in  me  un- 
brokenly,  in  a  thousand  streams, "  he  wrote. 

But  just  as  Rahel  had  emptied  the  urn  that  con- 
tained the  ashes  of  the  past  and  again  approached 
the  altar,  whence  she  might  take  new  fire,  just  as 
she  had  carried  her  heart,  as  one  carries  a  child 
after  a  winter's  illness,  out  into  the  green  grass 


150  Rahel  Varnhagen 

of  May,  the  "passionate  suspense"  that  she  had 
feared  began  to  be  felt  in  this  relationship,  as  in 
the  others.  She,  who  thought  she  had  done  with 
life  and  expected  nothing  from  it  but  "  a  little  sun- 
shine, fresh  air,  and  green  leaves"  and  who  could 
thus  look  forward  "cheerfully  and  without  con- 
straint" to  the  morrow,  now  felt  that  the  day  was 
no  longer  her  own:  "This  godlike  feeling,  my  only 
happiness,  is  mine  no  more. "  And  the  reason  was 
that  Varnhagen,  on  account  of  his  awakening  love, 
his  desire  of  winning  hers,  his  fear  of  being  un- 
worthy of  her,  his  continued  feeling  for  the  lady  he 
was  engaged  to,  and  his  connection  with  her,  was  so 
unbalanced  that  she  felt  him  to  be  hostile  to  her 
and  their  intercourse  to  be  "strangely  jarring  and 
painful. " 

"You  treat  me  like  a  mine:  with  pick-axes,  crow- 
bars, and  tools  you  try  to  get  something  out  of  me  that 
I  withhold,  you  try  to  remove  the  slag,  crush,  burn, 
break  up,  and  thus  purify  it  for  your  use!  But  sup- 
posing it  were  otherwise,  and  you  were  crushing  a 
plant?  ..." 

"  I  feel  oppressed  and  anxious  at  having  to  perform 
something,  ashamed  and  vexed  at  not  being  able  to  do 
it .  .  . 

And  so  this  pain  broke  in  upon  Rahel,  that  she 
had  allowed  her  sleeping  heart  to  wake,  only  to 


Love  151 

see  it  killed  anew ;  that  she  had  hardly  begun  to  feel 
that  Varnhagen  had  become  indispensable  to  her, 
before  she  was  faced  by  the  possibility  of  losing  him. 
And  the  danger  of  this  was  twofold:  it  came  from 
her  own  past  and  from  his.  For  Rahel  did  not 
conceal  from  him  that  neither  he  nor  any  one  else 
could  evoke  a  passion  such  as  Urquijo  had  in- 
spired in  her,  and  she  made  it  clear  to  him  that 
any  claims  in  this  direction  would  only  disturb 
the  beauty  of  the  new  feeling  that  was  growing  up 
between  them.  She  lets  him  read  all  her  letters 
to  Urquijo,  although  she  feels  that  perhaps  this 
will  part  them.  But  in  giving  him  the  letters  she  (/ 
warns  Varnhagen  against  being  too  ready  to  let 
her  go.  For  in  her  he  would  lose  a  world ;  nowhere 
would  he  find  any  one  with  whom  life  would  be 
easier  and  more  manifold,  inmost  fidelity  more 
sincere,  security  and  harmony  greater.  For  it  was 
true  that  she  was  "nothing  in  any  particular  di- 
rection, but  she  knew,  as  surely  as  one  knows  of 
one's  own  existence,  that  the  good  in  her  was 
unique."  And  not  only  that,  but  she  knew  that 
her  sentiment  for  Varnhagen  was  growing,  that 
the  pain  of  losing  him  would  be  greater  than  all 
that  had  gone  before.  But  this  does  not  prevent 
Rahel,  when  he  begins  to  speak  of  his  continued 


152  Rahel  Varnhagen 

feeling  for  Fanny  Herz,  of  the  intimate  letters  he 
was  still  writing  to  her,  of  her  waiting  for  him,  of 
his  sorrow  for  her  suffering,  from  acting  in  full 
concord  with  her  principles,  since  these  were  one 
with  her  nature.  In  her  bitter  grief  at  having  once 
more  come  pure  and  honest  and  being  obliged  to 
go  away  "poor  and  injured,"  the  thought  no 
doubt  flashed  through  her  that  this  time  she  would 
not  give  way,  that  she  would  hold  her  own  against 
this  woman  who  was  her  inferior.  But  Rahel, 
pure  and  serious  as  a  flame,  soon  gave  up  this 
idea.  Varnhagen,  with  his  lamentations  over  the 
perplexity  to  which  he  could  see  no  issue,  in  which 
he  could  choose  neither  Rahel  nor  Fanny,  seemed 
to  her  an  object  of  pity  rather  than  of  scorn. 
Perhaps  he  was  right  in  saying  that  he  was  a 
"hyper-modern"  person,  that  he  could  really  love 
two  women  at  the  same  time,  that  he  required 
many  love  affairs  as  he  required  many  friends. 
He  was  one  of  the  "  disintegrated  moderns,  the 
sick  Europeans"  and  he  had  to  follow  his  nature, 
as  Rahel  hers.  She  acknowledges  that  with  her 
extremely  explosive  nature  she  could  no  doubt  be 
hasty,  abrupt,  unjust,  but  "how  should  one  perse- 
cuted by  God  be  amiable?"  In  spite  of  the  ship- 
wreck that  had  stranded  her  in  the  region  the 


Love  153 

ancients  called  hell,  she  had  yet  had  courage  to 
venture  once  more  upon  the  same  ocean.  And 
she  felt  that  this  very  courage,  the  strength  of  her 
poor,  lonely,  ill-treated  heart  to  love  again,  made 
her  a  very  wonderful  being  and  that  her  own  power 
of  giving  much  involved  her  right  to  make  great 
claims.  Not  of  fidelity.  It  is  true  that  she  calls 
love  and  fidelity  one  and  the  same,  but  she  imme- 
diately explains  that  this  does  not  mean  that  a 
so-called  love  cannot  come  to  an  end.  This  is 
just  what  shows  it  to  have  been  an  illusion. 

"Our  senses  then  claim  something  better,  and  our 
heart  has  not  been  touched,  nor  has  it  affected  the 
rest  of  our  soul.  .  .  .  That  which  we  retrieve  for 
ourselves  is  no  fidelity,  but  that  is  fidelity  which  re- 
sides securely  deep  in  our  heart  together  with  our 
blood.  .  .  " 

She  knows  that  she  herself  is  one  of  those  who 
can  do  nothing  else  but  love,  for  whom  love 
is  their  "masterpiece,  their  crown,  their  life, 
and  their  proof  of  authenticity."  He  would  not 
be  able  to  tear  fidelity  out  of  her  heart  without 
tearing  her  heart  itself  to  pieces,  without  turning 
all  its  blood  to  tears  and  without  transforming 
himself  so  that  she  lost  her  faith  in  him!  Varn- 
hagen  had  given  her  happiness,  and  whether 


154  Rahel  Varnhagen 

this  was  to  be  lasting  or  not  made  no  difference  to 
its  reality.  If  his  happiness  was  still  with  her, 
then  she  would  be  mad  with  bliss,  but  without 
his  happiness,  his  presence  could  give  her  no  joy. 
And  finally  she  exclaims:  "Oh,  understand  me! 
If  I  could  hold  your  head  and  kiss  you,  you  would 
understand  me." 

What  she  asks  is  only  that  he  shall  make  his 
choice.  For,  in  spite  of  Rahel's  certainty  that 
"where  two  hearts  beat  as  one,  there  is  serious- 
ness"; in  spite  of  her  knowledge  that  "the  inmost 
heart  is  wiser  than  all  else, "  it  was  possible  that 
she  was  mistaken  and  that  Varnhagen's  fiancee 
was  his  "real  life-pulse."  And  therefore  Rahel 
felt  but  one  duty :  that  of  giving  Varnhagen  his  full 
freedom  and  insisting  on  his  going  to  Hamburg 
and  putting  his  feelings  to  the  test  by  a  renewed 
companionship  with  Fanny  Herz.  She  only  gave 
him  one  piece  of  advice  characteristic  of  herself: 
"  Have  no  conscience ! " 

Neither  his  sympathy  with  Rahel's  nor  with 
Fanny's  suffering  ought  to  have  any  influence  with 
him,  but  only  considerations  of  what  he  perceived 
to  be  his  true  happiness. 

"  You  must  be  free,  and  you  are  free.  You  are  bound 
by  no  word  to  me,  no  utterance,  no  hope  you  have 


Love  155 

given.  .  .  .  Your  longing,  your  love  for  me  alone  can 
make  me  happy;  a  bond  that  holds  you,  never, never! 
With  me  you  are  like  a  bird  on  its  branch.  ..." 

"You  must  see  her,  this  woman,  must  live  wjth  her. 
If  there  are  wounds,  they  must  be  perfectly  healed: 
either  by  a  happy  life  together  or  by  sheer  separation. 
I  would  rather  not  see  you  again  first.  Every  night 
I  grow  stronger,  firmer,  purer,  more  resolute,  more 
self -penetrating ;  I  can  bear  nothing  weak,  wounded, 
ambiguous,  sick,  or  pitiful  in  my  soul.  ..." 

"If  you  love  me,  all  will  come  right.  I  can  no  longer 
struggle  with  or  for  anything,  and  a  conquered 
happiness  has  always  disgusted  me.  ..." 

"You  think  me  hard?  I  am,  unhappy  woman! 
And  always  towards  myself!  I  would  not  show  you 
two  suffering  women  and  so  showed  you  one  hard  as 
iron.  Even  now,  when  you  must  leave  me,  I  will  not 
complain.  If  you  come,  I  shall  be  glad.  I  am  not 
fond  of  hesitation:  that  is  the  limit  of  my  nature. " 

She  can  face  without  any  rage  of  jealousy  the 
possibility  of  losing  him,  but  only  if  he  thereby 
attains  a  greater  happiness.  For  a  feeling  that  is 
quenched,  for  a  false  idea  of  duty,  she  will  not 
allow  herself  to  be  sacrificed.  If  he  leaves  her,  she 
and  the  happiness  he  has  given  her  will  remain 
hers  for  ever. 

"You  are  to  enjoy  love  and  happiness  and  bright- 
ness. .  .  .  This  is  no  exaggerated,  sentimental, 
self-sacrifice  on  my  part.  I  set  no  value  on  divid- 


156  Rahel  Varnhagen 

ing  and  sacrificing.     But  if  you  really  loved,  I  would 
help  to  crown  you!  ..." 

' '  I  return  your  love  with  extreme  affection,  as  you 
have  seen  a  hundred  times;  I  could  spend  my  life 
with  you,  that  is  my  ardent  and  serious,  now  my 
only  desire;  I  should  devote  it  to  you  with  joy  and  the 
greatest  satisfaction;  I  recognise  your  whole  value,  and 
not  a  grain  of  your  amiability,  accurately  weighed, 
escapes  me.  I  am  faithful  to  you  from  inclination, 
from  love,  and  from  the  best-considered  choice.  I 
have  no  claims  upon  you.  I  am  your  friend,  as  a  man 
might  be.  You  are  in  no  respect  bound  by  me.  I 
should  wish  to  serve  you  with  my  blood.  And  is  it 
not  natural  that  at  last  I  should  wish  to  be  acknow- 
ledged? and  it  is  only  through  you  that  I  am  acknow- 
ledged clearly ....  But  do  not  think  that  I  love 
you  entirely  without  anxiety.  The  possession  of  you 
is  necessary  to  me  in  every  sense.  But  where  satis- 
faction has  been,  there  it  remains.  And  in  every  loss, 
in  every  need,  it  would  always  give  me  support.  I 
have  possessed  life's  happiness. " 

She  makes  no  pretence  of  heroism,  she  openly 
expresses  the  feeling  of  loss  that  prevents  her  en- 
joying nature,  light  and  shade,  all  that  they  have 
enjoyed  together,  as  though  she  wished  to  com- 
municate to  him  every  word,  every  gleam  of  sun- 
shine that  delights  her.  She  tells  him  that  simply 
by  coming  into  her  life  he  has  become  "a  gleam  of 
sunlight  over  the  whole  horizon  of  the  life  she  has 


Love  157 

yet  to  live";  he  has  given  her  a  sense  of  health, 
pride,  satisfaction;  she  feels  that  the  magic  circle 
of  her  fate  has  been  broken  and  now  she  has 
courage  to  lose  him  and  live  on.  If  it  is  right 
for  him  to  leave  her,  then  he  should  do  so;  then 
she  would  lose  him  as  inevitably  as  the  flower 
falls  from  the  tree  and  the  tree  is  nevertheless 
able  to  endure  the  winter. 

"  Ought  I  to  murder  myself  in  advance,  because  I  am 
mortal?.  .  .  .  It  is  stupid  to  be  afraid;  is  not  the 
present  moment  also  future?  We  always  want  the 
future  to  be  so  beautiful,  so  certain! " 

There  is  no  period  of  Rahel's  life  which  throws 
clearer  light  on  her  nature  than  this.  An  ordinary 
selfish  woman,  in  the  given  circumstances,  would 
have  done  everything  to  keep  Varnhagen  in 
Berlin  and  with  alternate  coolness  and  warmth 
would  have  aroused  his  jealousy  and  his  passion. 
An  ordinary  unselfish  woman,  in  the  given  cir- 
cumstances, would  have  sacrificed  herself  to  his 
so-called  "duty"  to  his  fiancee. 

Rahel  does  neither.  She  sends  him  to  Ham- 
burg, but  keeps,  through  her  letters  and  the 
frank  expression  of  her  feelings,  the  power  she 
has  won;  his  presence  there  gives  his  fiancee  the 


158  Rahel  Varnhagen 

same  chance,  and  his  fate  is  to  be  decided  by  the 
sacrifice  of  neither,  but  only  by  his  own  choice. 

She  said  herself  that  she  awaited  the  crisis  as 
one  awaits  that  of  a  fever ;  but  until  he  had  decided, 
one  way  or  the  other,  she  would  not  see  him  again. 

At  Hamburg,  Varnhagen  found  that  his  feel- 
ing for  Fanny  grew  fainter  day  by  day ;  that  their 
misunderstandings  increased;  that,  even  if  there 
had  been  no  Rahel,  their  relationship  could  never 
be  resumed,  and  he  had  definitely  broken  it  off 
when  he  returned  to  Rahel. 

But  now  new  difficulties  appeared,  due  to 
Varnhagen's  possessing  neither  fortune  nor  posi- 
tion and  to  his  being  both  unable  and  unwilling  to 
unite  Rahel's  lot  with  his,  until  he  was  something 
more  than  a  student,  whose  studies  even  were  not 
concluded.  Rahel  agreed  with  him  in  this,  and 
thus  during  their  engagement  they  remained  sepa- 
rated, except  for  brief  periods,  while  Varnhagen, 
as  student,  soldier,  and  diplomatist,  completed  his 
education  and  established  his  position,  so  that  he 
might  be  able  to  offer  Rahel  something  more  than 
his  devoted  soul. 

During  these  years  of  uncertainty  and  sepa- 
ration Rahel  applied  more  and  more  perfectly 
her  great  principle  of  married  life:  "Be  true  and 


Love  159 

grow  gentle";  the  principle  which  she  has  also 
formulated  at  greater  length  in  these  words: 

' '  See,  love,  understand,  wish  for  nothing,  adapt  one's 
self,  even  when  not  in  fault ;  reverence  the  greatness 
of  existence,  do  not  harass,  invent,  and  improve  and 
be  cheerful  and  ever  more  kind! " 

This  was  not  always  easy  during  the  six  years 
of  Varnhagen's  Odyssey,  for  his  indecision,  lack  of 
method,  and  uncertainty  caused  Rahel  not  only 
sorrow,  by  failure  of  arrangements  for  meeting, 
for  instance,  but  also  practical  difficulties  and 
personal  unpleasantness.  She  on  her  side  has  the 
tender  sensitiveness  of  one  who  has  twice  been 
mortally  wounded.  She  prefers  to  withdraw  rath- 
er than  constantly  to  renew  her  sufferings,  and 
she  is  so  afraid  of  binding  or  hindering  him  that  a 
man  with  less  psychological  insight  than  Varn- 
hagen  would  have  thought  her  cold. 

It  is  very  significant  that  she  never  feels  the 
difference  in  their  ages  as  a  hindrance.  For  on 
the  one  hand  she  looked  for  a  long  time  younger 
than  he  did,  on  the  other  she  felt  with  one  of  her 
friends  that  between  lovers  "les  dmes  sont  toujours 
du  meme  dge. "  What  she  feared  was  that  she  had 
suffered  too  much,  that  she  no  longer  had  elasti- 
city, courage,  confidence  enough  for  happiness. 


160  Rahel  Varnhagen 

And  what  she  knew  was  that  she  was  no  longer 
capable  of  only  giving,  making  no  demands. 

"I  have  atoned  sufficiently  here  on  earth,  with  my 
whole  earthly  life,  for  the  lie  that  I  did  not  claim  what 
I  desired  and  gave. " 

No  doubt  Rahel  is  sometimes  over-hasty  in  her 
censure,  but  she  willingly  acknowledges  her  in- 
justice and  Varnhagen  makes  this  easy  for  her  by 
the  touching  amiability  with  which  he  receives  her 
strictures,  even  when  they  are  undeserved.  He 
felt  that  in  a  broad  sense  she  was  right  in  drawing 
his  attention  to  what  she  called  his  "life-pauses": 
the  instances  of  rudeness  or  indelicacy  or  hasti- 
ness whereby  he  made  enemies;  and  when  she 
blamed  his  "everlasting  habit  of  pouring  himself 
out"  to  every  one  he  met,  his  weakly  need  of 
sympathy  and  his  want  of  independence. 

His  lack  of  fixity  and  repose  was  due  in  great 
measure  to  the  conditions  of  the  time.  But  they 
often  cause  Rahel  to  wonder  whether  the  earth 
only  existed  for  her  to  "weep,  be  enraptured,  and 
love"  in,  but  never  to  strike  root  in. 

Since  Varnhagen,  also  a  disciple  of  Goethe, 
understood  the  word  culture  in  its  deepest  sense — 
as  the  education  which  penetrates  and  transforms 


Love  161 

the  whole  man — he  was  capable  of  loving  Rahel's 
unsparing  frankness,  even  when  she  pointed  out 
the  unfertile  fields  in  his  own  nature,  which  he 
ought  to  cultivate.  Nothing  is  more  descriptive 
of  Rahel's  feeling  during  the  first  years  of  their 
engagement  than  the  following  beautiful  words: 
"Ah,  how  I  rejoice  over  your  development! 
Dear  chalice,  what  wilt  thou  not  contain,  warmed 
at  my  breast,  by  my  love!  I  am  so  happy  and  so 
proud  and  so  uneasy.  My  spirit  and  my  heart 
have  a  child!  This  child  is  my  beloved!"  And 
in  truth  she  was  to  him  mother  and  sister,  friend 
and  mistress ;  she  exhaled  genius  and  goodness  up- 
on him ;  her  devotion  was  as  clear-sighted  and  wise 
as  it  was  tender  and  active. 

Her  feeling  is  genuine  and  warm  even  in  all  the 
little  things  by  which  she  shows  how  he  is  always 
present  to  her ;  as,  for  instance  when  she  has  eaten 
something  that  he  would  have  liked,  or  enjoyed 
the  air,  or  taken  a  pleasant  walk.  And  she  is  de- 
lighted when  similar  things  appear  in  his  letters. 
Thus  he  once  had  a  hard  wooden  bench  to  sleep  on 
at  night,  and  thought:  "If  Rahel  knew  of  this!" 
These  words  were  enough  to  illumine  her  soul,  "like 
summer  lightning,"  with  bright  happiness.  For 
they  "were  a  witness  of  intimate,  confiding,  de- 


1 62  Rahel  Varnhagen 

voted  love,  and  knowledge  of  being  loved  again. 
If  she  had  been  there,  how  she  would  have  kissed 
him  on  the  hard  bench ;  how  she  would  have  made 
it  comfortable  for  him,  for  he  would  have  had  her 
shoulder  to  lean  against.  ..." 

In  many  ways  Rahel  shows  that  she  does  not 
love  him  "without  uneasiness,"  and  on  his  ex- 
pressing some  doubt  she  exclaims :  "  Have  you  then 
never  seen  the  transport  in  my  eyes,  when  I  looked 
into  yours?  The  stifling  stream  of  blissfulness 
that  then  came  over  me  ? ' ' 

It  is  true  that  she  is  still  "inaccessible"  in  her 
soul  and  sees  that  "every  one  carries  about  with 
him  this  patrimony  from  other  worlds."  She 
knew  that  even  love  cannot  penetrate  into  the 
doubts  of  the  soul,  the  questionings  of  conscience, 
or  the  depths  of  memory.  But  otherwise  she  felt 
the  glow  of  love  through  her  whole  being,  and  she 
could  say  with  truth  to  Varnhagen:  "You  have 
won  my  feeling,  my  whole  heart. "  Indeed,  with- 
out her  love  she  seems  to  herself  shadowy  and  of  no 
account ;  on  the  days  when  she  has  not  written  to 
him  she  has  not  lived  at  all,  and  "to  kiss  his  mouth, 
his  eyes,  to  press  him  to  her  heart "  is  her  most 
ardent  longing.  Varnhagen  on  his  side  shows  in  a 
thousand  ways  the  truth  of  his  words:  "I  love 


Love  163 

you  so  boundlessly  and  intensely,  as  neither  lovers 
nor  friends  are  loved:  as  your  disciple  and  pro- 
phet." He  wonders  whether  she  can  suffer  so 
much  as  he  from  their  separation,  since  she  has — 
Rahel,  for  whom  he  is  always  longing!  He  hun- 
gers for  every  line  of  hers  and  asks  her  to  let  him 
see  what  she  writes  even  to  others,  for  he  covets 
her  slightest  words,  whether  they  reveal  the  depth, 
the  nobility,  or  the  gaiety  of  her  temperament,  of 
which  he  confirms  Jean  Paul's  judgment,  that 
great  as  were  Rahel's  wisdom  and  wit,  they  were 
yet  of  less  importance  than  her  warmth  and  good- 
ness. "With  you,"  says  Varnhagen,  "even  the 
commonplace  becomes  uncommon,  through  the 
genuineness  that  radiates  from  your  every  mani- 
festation of  life. "  And  he  hit  upon  one  among  his 
many  happy  expressions  for  Rahel's  personality — 
its  firmness,  unity,  its  perfectly- rounded  complete- 
ness— when  he  said  that  she  ought  properly  to 
be  represented  plastically.  He  tells  her  that, 
when  her  letters  arrive,  he  first  lets  them  lie  be- 
fore him  unopened  for  a  little  while.  For  the 
letter  bears  with  it  a  ray  of  her  presence,  and  to 
see  it  and  touch  it  in  its  outer  form  gives  him  a 
little  of  that  bliss  he  felt  when  he  could  look  into 
her  eyes  and  kiss  her  lips.  And  in  the  same  way 


1 64  Rahel  Varnhagen 

Varnhagen  expresses  most  perfectly  his  own  feel- 
ing for  Rahel' s  nature  when  he  says  that  she  is  to 
him  what  the  Bible  is  to  Christians ;  the  thought  of 
her  follows  him  everywhere,  it  is  the  light  of  his 
life  and  embraces  the  whole  circle  of  his  know- 
ledge, his  joys,  and  his  sorrows.  She,  the  ever 
healthy  and  creative,  sows  the  fields  of  his  soul 
with  her  living  words;  each  one  of  them  shoots  up 
within  him  and  becomes  a  full  ear,  from  which 
he  derives  his  sustenance.  He  rejoices  that, 
when  their  letters  cross,  it  often  happens  that 
they  contain  the  same  thought,  written  down 
by  each  independently  of  the  other;  for  in 
this  he  sees  to  what  a  degree  they  belong  to 
each  other,  how  they  delight  in  the  same  things,  as 
they  also  understand  jest  and  earnest  in  the  same 
way. 

And,  he  writes,  like  the  jet  of  a  fountain  the 
desire  continually  rises  within  him  of  seeing  every- 
thing with  her,  hearing  her  speak  of  everything, 
seeing  her  life  sink  into  everything  and  come  forth 
again  in  full  flower.  "  You  are  so  rich,"  he  says, 
"  that  twenty  such  as  I  would  be  needed  only  to 
form  a  pair  of  eyes  as  seeing  as  yours,  and  in  my 
whole  head  there  is  not  so  much  life  as  in  your 
little  finger!  "  By  all  roads  his  thoughts,  dreams, 


Love  165 

and  plans  arrive  at  her,  whose  mere  existence  is 
to  him  a  festival  of  triumph. 

"  That  my  life  was  able  to  win  you  and  has  won 
you,  makes  it  in  my  eyes  one  of  the  most  favoured 
that  has  ever  been  lived  upon  earth, "  says  Varn- 
hagen. 

But  we  may  reverse  the  saying  and  put  it  that 
only  a  rare  nature  could  have  won  Rahel,  and  there 
is  no  surer  evidence  of  the  worth  of  what  was 
essential  in  Varnhagen's  nature  than  the  fact  that 
he  before  all  others  understood  Rahel  with  the 
perfect  comprehension  of  love.  With  his  weak- 
nesses in  public  life  we  have  nothing  to  do  here. 
In  one  thing  he  was  great:  his  great  love.  To 
have  been  capable  of  such  an  emotion  is  a  man's 
patent  of  nobility,  his  eternal  life.  Every  one  who 
reads  with  seeing  eyes  the  correspondence  be- 
tween Varnhagen  and  Rahel  knows,  too,  that  it  is 
always  the  sun  of  genuine  love  that  shines  upon 
Rahel's  existence,  though  at  a  different  season. 
It  was  no  longer  spring,  as  with  her  feeling  for 
Finckenstein,  nor  high  summer,  as  with  Urquijo, 
but  September,  the  season  when  cold  and  poverty 
have  not  yet  appeared,  when  the  heat  is  gone  but 
the  warmth  remains,  when  the  air  is  cool  and  soft 
as  silk,  the  sky  deep  blue  and  the  sunshine  more 


1 66  Rahel  Varnhagen 

golden  than  ever,  when  the  gardens  are  brilliant 
with  richly-coloured  flowers  and  ripening  fruit  falls 
upon  the  dewy  grass,  when  peace  and  plenty  are 
united  as  at  no  other  season. 

And  Rahel  expressed  this  peace  and  plenty  in 
love  by  the  simplest,  and  greatest,  of  all  words  of 
love:  "With  you  near  me  I  could  part  from  life, 
freed  from  pain. " 


The  more  intimately  their  souls  were  united,  the 
more  keenly  did  Varnhagen  feel  his  daily  loss  in  be- 
ing separated  from  Rahel,  for  the  fervid  sponta- 
neity of  whose  companionship  no  letters  could 
make  amends.  At  last  the  time  arrived  when, 
in  Rahel' s  words,  they  could  have  their  love 
forged  "on  the  plebeian  anvil,"  as  a  condition  of 
"being  allowed  to  pass  by  the  plebeians. "  Varn- 
hagen, like  Rahel,  thought  it  a  miserable  thing 
that  society  should  be  "such  a  poor-house  that  it 
has  only  this  one  form  for  the  most  widely  diversi- 
fied relationship, "  and  they  both  submit  to  the 
form  with  the  reservation  that  they  are  to  "ignore" 
the  fact  of  their  being  married.  Rahel  insists  both 
before  and  after  her  marriage  that,  if  Varnhagen 
had  not  understood  her  "indescribable  yearning 


Love  167 

for  liberty, "  if  with  him  she  had  not  been  able  to  be 
true  in  everything,  if  his  ideas  of  the  absurdity  of 
marriage  had  not  been  exactly  the  same  as  hers, 
she  would  never  have  married  him. 

They  were  married  as  quietly  as  possible  on 
September  27,  1814,  and  shortly  afterwards  were 
again  separated,  owing  to  Varnhagen's  political 
duties.  The  first  five  years  of  their  married  life 
were  spent  partly  in  Vienna,  partly  in  Carlsruhe 
and  elsewhere;  a  restless  life,  during  which  Rahel 
longed  more  and  more  to  return  to  Berlin.  This 
only  became  possible  in  October,  1819.  But  from 
that  time  until  her  death  she  was  never  absent 
except  for  very  brief  periods  from  the  place  that 
she  loved,  since  she  had  "suffered,  loved,  and 
known  "  so  much  there.  During  the  many  periods 
of  separation  incidental  to  these  first  years  of 
their  married  life,  Varnhagen's  letters  are  even 
more  ardent  than  before  their  union.  More  and 
more  during  his  life  with  Rahel  does  he  discover 
her  "uniqueness";  she  alone  is  in  the  fullest  sense 
good,  inspired,  beautiful,  and  true,  and  through  the 
"waves  of  love  and  life"  she  sends  over  him,  she 
is  "the  author  of  his  happiness."  And  she  ex- 
claims that  it  is  "a  happiness  to  which  one  ought 
to  kneel"  to  receive  such  love-letters  from  one's 


1 68  Rahel  Varnhagen 

husband ;  they  make  her  humble  and  uneasy  that 
she  is  not  handsome  enough,  so  that  others  perhaps 
may  blame  Varnhagen's  choice,  but  glad  that  she 
looks  so  young.  Otherwise  this  would  have  dis- 
pleased her,  for  she  preferred  that  age  and  looks 
should  keep  pace.  It  is  a  source  of  wonder  as  well 
as  of  happiness  to  her  that  Varnhagen,  "through 
some  magic  unknown  to  her, "  is  in  love  with  her. 

"I  am  so  greatly  loved  and  honoured  by  him  that  I 
am  ashamed  before  God  and  must  constantly  reflect 
how  I  may  be  able  to  sweeten  his  life,  so  as  to  repay 
him  at  least  in  part.  But  my  greatest  happiness  con- 
sists in  this,  that  I  am  entirely  unconscious  of  being 
married!  That  I  am  perfectly  free  in  all  things,  in 
my  life  and  feeling;  that  I  can  tell  Varnhagen  every- 
thing, can  be  entirely  true,  and  that  just  this  so  de- 
lights and  charms  him.  But  he  too  is  happy  through 
me,  only  through  me.  You  ought  to  see  and  hear  how 
he  expresses  this  in  my  presence  and  in  writing  to  me. 
When  we  see  such  things  in  books,  we  do  not  believe 
them  and  say:  This  is  only  fiction. " 

"I  am  on  a  perfectly  free  footing  with  him,  other- 
wise I  could  never  have  married  him.  His  ideas  of 
marriage  and  mine  are  the  same.  ..." 

"I  acknowledge  no  relationship  to  be  free  and 
beautiful  if  it  restricts  me,  if  it  makes  me  lie  or  deny 
my  nature  what  is  possible  and  necessary  to  it. " 

And  to  Varnhagen  she  wrote:  "As  far  as  it  was 
possible — possible  to  your  nature — to  understand  a  na- 
ture such  as  mine,  you  have  understood  me:  through 


Love  169 

the  noblest  and  most  soulful  recognition:  with  an  in- 
sight that  I  do  not  understand,  since  it  is  not  due  to 
resemblances  in  our  natures.  It  is  impossible  for  any 
person  to  adopt  and  deal  with  another  more  unself- 
ishly, more  magnanimously,  with  more  understand- 
ing than  you  have  done  with  me.  Never  has  insight 
into  a  person  taken  such  effect  upon  the  very  centre 
of  the  will  as  your  insight  into  me.  This  cannot 
be  more  warmly  acknowledged  than  by  me,  nor 
can  this  acknowledgment  be  more  completely  trans- 
formed into  love. " 

It  is  quite  clear  that  Rahel  was  not  in  love  with 
Varnhagen  in  the  truest  meaning  of  the  term,  that 
his  personality  did  not  fill  her  with  the  same  trans- 
port as  hers  did  him.  Possibly  she  was  thinking  of 
her  feeling  for  Varnhagen  when  she  said: 

"Not  our  first,  as  the  proverb  says,  but  our 
last  love  is  the  true  one:  the  one  that  commands 
all  our  powers. " 

But  in  that  case  the  words  were  called  forth 
by  the  mood  of  a  moment.  For  her  feeling  for 
Varnhagen  did  not  command  all  her  powers.  One 
among  many  jproof s  of  this  is  the  fact  that  it  was 
Varnhagen,  not  Rahel,  who  complained  that  Berlin 
life  hardly  ever  gave  them  a  quiet  hour  together. 

In  the  home  they  lived  in  longest,1  and  until 

1  Maurerstrasse  36;  they  lived  at  first  at  Franzosische 
Strasse  20. 


170  Rahel  Varnhagen 

Rahel's  death,  she  delighted  in  the  large  and  lofty 
rooms,  as  she  did  in  the  garden  of  a  neighbour, 
where  "there  was  air  and  fragrance,  as  in  a  forest- 
er's lodge."  In  their  apartment  everything  was 
simple;  a  few  portraits  and  busts  were  the  only 
things,  besides  flowers,  that  were  not  necessary. 
But  all  the  arrangements  were  so  comfortable  and 
convenient  that  the  whole  impression  was  more 
tasteful  than  great  elegance  could  have  made  it. 
That  a  piano  and  books  were  counted  among 
necessaries  goes  without  saying. 

Rahel  was  one  of  those  women,  still  very  un- 
common, who  combine  an  unfettered  "living  out 
one's  life"  with  order  and  regularity  in  all  the  re- 
lations of  everyday  life;  in  this  trait  again  she  was 
as  far  removed  from  the  Romantic  School  as  she 
came  near  to  Goethe. 


On  this  point  Rahel  says  some  golden  truths: 
"Only  the  best  people  are  punctual.  Only  the  best 
know  that  even  the  most  highly-purified  earthly 
existence  is  subject  to  conditions  and  cannot  be  carried 
on  without  the  greatest  regularity  in  the  ordering  of 
the  commonest  things  around  us,  and  that  only  by 
this  can  time  be  economised,  which  we  can  never 
seize  or  recall ;  only  the  best  people  submit  themselves 
to  these  conditions.  ..." 

'  Le  positif  of  life  consists  in  living  out  what  is  imme- 


Love  171 

diately  before  us.  ...  To  feel  the  present  mo- 
ment, to  be  able  to  deal  with  it,  that  is  the  art  of 
living ;  the  more  we  have  of  this  in  us,  the  more  posi- 
tive we  shall  be,  and  the  more  positive  will  be  our 
experiences. " 

Through  these  qualities  she  was  able,  in  spite  of 
increasing  ill-health,  in  spite  of  her  time  being 
"robbed,  stolen,  and  torn  to  pieces,"  to  keep  the 
house  in  excellent  order,  to  see  that  Varnhagen 
could  work  undisturbed,  and  still  to  find  time  for 
her  own  more  personal  interests.  But  all  this 
required  so  great  an  expenditure  of  energy  that 
she  sometimes  sighed  for  solitude,  that  she  might 
be  left  in  peace  to  be  ill.  For  the  desire  of  not 
disquieting  Varnhagen  with  her  ill-health  always 
made  her  conceal  it  as  long  as  possible. 

Rahel,  like  other  people  of  nervous  nature, 
was  late  in  going  to  bed  and  in  rising.  She  em- 
ployed the  morning  hours  in  housekeeping  and 
other  practical  concerns,  and  in  receiving  visits. 
Afterwards  she  took  a  walk,  visited  some  art 
exhibition  or  rehearsal,  or  made  a  few  calls. 
Guests  were  often  invited  to  the  somewhat  late 
dinner,  or  a  visitor  of  the  forenoon  was  asked  to 
stay  on,  and  Rahel  took  pride  in  a  good  and  re- 
fined table.  After  dinner  she  was  disinclined  to 


172  Rahel  Varnhagen 

receive  visitors,  but  employed  the  time  in  reading 
and  writing  letters.  In  the  evening  she  often  went 
to  some  concert  or  theatre,  and  was  frequently 
accompanied  home  by  a  whole  crowd  of  ac- 
quaintances, who  propounded  their  criticisms  in 
her  drawing-room  and  listened  to  hers.  The  con- 
versation was  often  so  lively  that  the  guests  did 
not  leave  before  midnight.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  Rahel  spent  the  evening  at  home,  the  visitors 
arrived  an  hour  or  two  earlier,  but  the  evening 
passed  so  pleasantly  with  conversation  and  music 
that  it  lasted  till  an  equally  late  hour. 

It  was  her  own  experience  that  Rahel  ex- 
pressed in  the  words:  "Finely-organised  people 
must  have  amusement, "  and  it  was  her  delight  to 
offer  this  to  others  in  its  noblest  form.  She  her- 
self no  doubt  underrated  her  genius  when  she 
asserted  that  her  famous  "  social  gifts  were  nothing 
but  kindness."  But  their  most  important  part 
was  nevertheless  the  warmth  that  radiated  from 
her  over  every  one,  great  or  small,  celebrated  or 
not. 

Rahel  in  her  inmost  soul  was  a  motherly  nature. 
Though  herself  deprived  of  true  motherly  affec- 
tion, she  says  the  most  beautiful  things  of  what 


Love  173 

motherhood  ought  to  be.  Motherliness  forms  an 
essential  part  of  her  love,  and  she  sums  up  her 
nature  in  the  words:  "I  am  a  mother  without 
children." 

"Yesterday  I  was  meditating  on  human  suffering  and 
love,  and  thought :  The  greatest  passion  loses  its  black 
magic,  its  mortal  sharpness,  when  one  has  a  mother 
as  she  ought  to  be.  .  .  .  Then  misfortune  can 
never  come  upon  one  so  devastatingly,  every  re- 
lationship becomes  gentle  and  clear  and  must  take  a 
purer  form,  and  at  the  very  beginning  the  evil  gives 
way  before  the  worthy  and  lovable  and  departs  into 
'the  night  of  the  heart,'  .  .  .  as  Fichte  says.  Imagine 
a  young,  loving  mother  like  me,  the  dearest  friend,  the 
most  intimate  confidante  of  her  children,  their  com- 
panion in  games,  in  music,  society,  dress,  life,  and 
thoughts.  Almighty  Lord,  what  a  close,  sure  support 
this  is!  Such  a  mother  is  God's  deputy  on  earth.  O 
God,  there  is  a  happiness  in  this  confusion  of  misery 
here  below,  but  nobody  performs  his  office  and  the 
world  goes  to  ruin.  ..." 

All  children  loved -Rahel  as  dearly  as  she  loved 
them;  their  own  playmates  could  not  play  or  laugh 
with  them  better  than  Rahel.  They  always  had 
something  to  tell  her  and  she  to  tell  them,  and  to 
be  with  Rahel  was  the  greatest  joy  of  her  brother's 
children,  as  it  was  hers  to  have  them. 

Jean  Paul  once  expressed  his  opinion  that  she 


174  Rahel  Varnhagen 

ought  to  have  remained  unmarried.1  She  re- 
plied that  in  these  words  he  condemned  marriage, 
and  that  she  would  never  submit  to  an  unhappy 
marriage. 

"He  who  does  violence  to  my  inmost  consent  and 
my  inclination,  will  only  keep  me  as  a  prisoner. " 

If  he  meant  that  she  and  Varnhagen  in  an  inner 
sense  were  already  married,  and  might  thus  re- 
main unwedded  in  an  outer  sense,  then  she  agreed 
on  her  own  behalf  and  on  that  of  all  those  who  be- 
long to  each  other  of  necessity.  But  if  Jean  Paul 
intended  his  words  to  be  taken  absolutely,  he  was 
as  much  mistaken  about  her  inmost  nature  as  her 
most  malevolent  censurers,  for  thereby  he  denied 
her  children. 

Rahel' s  marriage  was  childless;  but  she,  who 
thanked  God  for  "  every  bit  of  childish  innocence, " 
found  a  compensation  in  her  niece's  little  daughter, 
Elise,  who  in  Rahel's  later  years  was  the  "medicine 
of  her  soul."  Her  descriptions  of  their  com- 
panionship, of  the  little  one's  words,  behaviour,  and 
emotions  show  how  passionately  she  worshipped 
this  child.  And  when  she  had  had  the  little  girl 

1 "  She  [Rahel]  is  an  artist,  she  begins  an  entirely  new  sphere, 
she  is  an  exceptional  being,  in  conflict  with  ordinary  life  and 
raised  high  above  it,  and  therefore  she  must  remain  unmarried." 


Love  175 

with  her  for  a  time,  she  felt  her  heart  "dashed  in 
pieces"  at  having  to  send  her  and  the  other  child- 
ren back  to  their  parents,  after  having  at  last  been 
able  for  eight  whole  weeks  to  live  "with,  for,  and 
only  through  them. "  "I  put  flesh  on  them  by  my 
care  and  made  their  souls  grow  and  their  minds 
arise  and  bestir  themselves."  All  day  long  she 
had  been  at  their  disposal,  and  for  half  the  day  she 
had  been  out  with  them  in  "wood,  field,  and  gar- 
den." But  now  that  joy  was  over,  and  she  was 
left  alone  to  grieve  that  others  had  what  ought 
to  have  been  hers,  what  her  love  gave  her  a  right 
to.  ...  "It  does  not  avail  me  to  be  past  the  age 
of  amorous  love;  /  suffer  nevertheless."  This 
is  Rahel  at  fifty-nine,  complaining  to  the  young 
Heine. 

In  another  letter  to  Gentz  she  speaks  of  still 
having  a  "love-heart;  I  love  a  pure  dewdrop  from 
heaven  with  a  new  tenderness,  never  felt  before. " 
She  complains  of  being  forced  to  suffer  even  in 
this  love,  since  the  child  in  an  outward  sense  does 
not  belong  to  Ker,  although  in  an  inward  sense  it 
does.  For  the  child  has  her  blood,  nerves,  and 
nimbleness  of  spirit,  its  "heart  is  tender  and 
strong."  At  the  same  time  Rahel  is  glad  that 
Elise  is  unlike  her  in  being  graceful,  pretty,  and 


176  Rahel  Varnhagen 

frivolous,  and  is  thus  "agreeable  to  God  and 
mankind!" 

Rahel  and  Bettina  Brentano  have  each  given 
a  charming  description  of  the  other's  way  with 
children,  in  Rahel's  saying  of  Bettina  that  she 
behaved  with  them  "  like  a  mythological  nurse- 
maid," and  in  Bettina's  insisting  that  her  child- 
ren's governess  should  treat  them  "exactly  as  Frau 
Varnhagen  does. " 

And  the  more  ill-health  limited  Rahel's  world  to 
her  four  walls,  the  more  did  her  eyes  find  their  de- 
light and  her  heart  its  repose  in  that  fragment  of 
eternally-young  nature,  a  child. 

Even  from  her  childhood  Rahel's  strength  of 
will  had  sustained  her  through  the  physical  weak- 
ness and  severe  sufferings  which  would  have  turned 
another  woman  into  a  selfish  and  fretful  invalid,  a 
trouble  to  herself  and  to  others.  Instead,  she 
made  use  of  these  sufferings  to  help  her  "to  be 
better,  to  feel  sympathy,  not  to  be  indifferent  to- 
wards the  poor  and  afflicted."  Even  when  in 
physical  pain  she  sustains  her  soul  by  "meditation, 
insight,  enthusiasm,  joyousness,  kindness,  inno- 
cence. "  The  years  thin  the  ranks  of  relatives  and 
friends,  but  enough  are  left  for  a  select  little  band 


Love  177 

to  collect  around  her  from  time  to  time.  And 
some  of  the  members  of  this  circle  satisfied  at 
home  the  thirst  for  music  that  Rahel  could  no 
longer  quench  outside. 

Some  severe  attacks  of  illness  had  already  pre- 
saged the  change  for  the  worse  that  took  place  in 
Rahel' s  condition  at  the  beginning  of  1833.  After 
a  few  weeks  of  fluctuation,  neither  her  will  to  live 
nor  love  could  keep  death  back.  She  died  on 
March  yth,  two  months  before  she  would  have 
completed  her  sixty-second  year. 

Thus  ended  the  nineteen  years  of  a  married  life 
of  which  Varnhagen  testified  that  during  it,  and 
after  it,  Rahel  was  always  "the  youngest  and 
freshest"  part  of  his  life. 

Several  years  after  Rahel's  death  Varnhagen 
again  expressed  his  astonishment 

"at  the  unique  combination  of  vital  forces  and  virtues 
she  presented.  In  her  the  fire  of  primeval  creative 
force  still  burned  with  a  bright  flame ;  she  still  had  all 
the  warmth  and  brightness  of  a  being  fresh  from  God's 
hand.  I  know  nothing  that  is  like  her;  talents  and 
powers  others  may  have  in  equal  or  greater  degree, 
but  none  her  spirit.  She  knew  this  well  and  said  and 
wrote  to  me:  'You  will  never  see  my  like  again.' 
She  was  right.  Sooner  will  a  second  Goethe,  Spinoza, 
Plato  appear  than  another  Rahel." 


CHAPTER  IV 

RELIGION 

THE  ideas,  which  are  called  by  preference  re- 
ligious, had  always  occupied  Rahel.  But,  as  is 
often  the  case  with  young  people,  the  sorrows  and 
joys  of  her  own  circumstances  disturbed  the  calm 
that  is  needed  for  meditation  and  piety.  As  one 
grows  older,  life  settles  down  of  itself  and,  to  the 
soulful  person,  the  questions  of  the  meaning  and 
aim  of  life  increase  in  importance  with  the  shades 
of  evening.  So  it  was  with  Rahel,  who  showed 
herself  more  and  more  what  she  had  been  all  her 
life:  one  of  those  natures,  religious  in  the  pro- 
foundest  sense,  to  whom  everything  is  religion, 
but  who,  in  Schiller's  words,  from  religious  motives 
profess  no  religion. 

She  was  born  a  Jewess  and  baptised  a  Christian 
on  her  marriage,  but  gave  her  faith  to  neither 
doctrine.  She  was  almost  a  child  when  the  two 

men  died,  who,  directly  and  indirectly,  had  re- 

178 


Religion  179 

formed  the  position  of  the  Jews — Moses  Mendels- 
sohn and  Frederick  the  Great.  But  she  was 
already  penetrated  by  the  spirit  of  the  new  age,  and 
the  peculiar  features  of  either  Judaism  or  Christi- 
anity had  no  importance  to  her.  On  her  death- 
bed she  said  that  she  had  been  thinking  of  Jesus 
and  had  felt  for  the  first  time  that  he  was  her 
brother  in  suffering.  Like  Goethe,  she  reverenced 
the  person  of  Jesus,  but  they  both  remained  cold 
to  the  religion  founded  in  his  name. 

So  long  as  Schleiermacher  was  pantheistically 
mystical,  Rahel  was  with  him.  But  when  he 
drew  near  to  positive  Christianity,  she  definitely 
held  aloof.  Her  soul  foreshadowed  to  her  a  new 
religion  and  she  was  convinced  that  the  present 
form  of  the  Christian  religion  was  "an  almost 
accidental  phase  in  the  development  of  the  spirit, 
and  one  that  had  lasted  too  long."  And  in  a 
profound  observation  she  points  out  the  incom- 
patibility of  Christianity  with  earthly  life. 

"This  whole, doctrine  arose  and  was  invented  in  a 
state  of  the  soul  that  cannot  last;  it  is  the  phase  of 
consecration  and  rebirth.  ...  It  is  really  the 
religion  which,  in  its  holiest  form,  ought  of  itself  to 
appear  and  work  and  live  in  every  soul  and  which  prop- 
erly speaking  ought  not  to  be  communicated.  ..." 

"Christianity  is  not  adaptable  for  community  of 


i8o  Rahel  Varnhagen 

practice  or  as  a  religion  of  duty.  But  since  it  made 
demands  of  renunciation  and  self-sacrifice,  it  spread 
like  a  passion  over  the  world ;  and  it  is  worthy  and 
beautiful  in  those  hearts  where  it  reigns  as  a  passion ; 
but,  when  applied  to  the  State  and  to  life,  it  has  been 
perverse  and  a  hindrance  for  ages.  .  .  . " 


Rahel  has  here  laid  stress  both  on  what  is 
significant,  at  certain  stages  of  the  life  of  humanity 
and  of  the  individual,  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Cross, 
and  on  the  unreasonableness  of  this  doctrine  be- 
ing imposed  upon  the  race  as  its  religion.  Rahel, 
like  Goethe,  like  Schleiermacher,  like  the  mystics, 
sees  the  source  of  religion  in  one's  own  spirit;  a 
religion  given  from  without  is  to  her  a  contra- 
diction in  terms ;  only  the  religion  that  comes  from 
the  individual  himself,  springing  from  his  being 
and  fashioned  according  to  his  needs,  is  genuine. 
She  insists  that  she  herself  can  learn  nothing, 
"no  religion  either";  for  religion  is  "the  last 
intimate  act"  between  man  and  "that  which  I 
may  not  name."  As  soon  as  this  relation  ac- 
quires a  name,  the  religion  becomes  untrue.  The 
great,  divine,  and  infinite,  Rahel — "savage"  that 
she  was — had  found  out  in  her  own  way.  And  she 
called  it  sin  and  blasphemy  not  to  let  every  one 
"make  such  discoveries  for  himself. " 


Religion  181 

To  Rahel  suffering  was  the  way  to  her  dis- 
coveries, in  religion  as  in  other  things.  "The 
heart  must  break  or  be  illumined,"  she  says  of 
her  brooding  over  grief,  and  herein  she  gives  the 
reason  why  religiousness,  in  her  opinion,  never  can 
be  or  ought  to  be  inculcated.  To  Rahel  it  is 
blasphemy  that  prayer,  the  outpouring  of  the 
soul,  should  be  extorted  at  fixed  times  and  places  ; 
it  seems  to  her  monstrous  to  make  a  child  adopt 
a  formula  in  which  many  great  questions  are  an- 
swered, "which  the  child  would  not  have  proposed 
to  itself  ...  a  sad  spectacle  of  stifled  intelli- 
gence!" And  she  would  gladly  grant  childhood 
what  she  finds  to  be  its  peculiar  happiness — 
not  to  form  any  "image  of  life"  but  to  live  in  the 
present,  although  she  knows  that  this  happy  state, 
which  she  calls  "the  first  human  nature,"  cannot 
last,  that  "brooding  over  things  is  the  nature  of 
the  spirit,"  or,  as  she  also  calls  it,  "the  second 
human  nature. " 

In  the  course  of  her  own  brooding,  which  we 
may  call  lifelong,  she  had  found  "that  the  whole 
difference  between  people's  minds  lies  only  in  their 
questioning:  they  must  all  answer  in  the  same 
way";  and  that  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance, 
above  all  in  the  loftiest  subjects,  not  to  receive  the 


1 82  Rahel  Varnhagen 

answers  before  the  questions,  but  to  try  one's 
self  to  find  the  answers  as  the  questions  arise. 
And,  she  thinks,  man  is  capable  of  this,  for  his  soul 
is  not  obscured  by  any  "fall,"  a  doctrine  which 
Rahel  called  an  "error  insulting  to  God."  With 
Spinoza,  whose  works  she  knew  and  loved,  she 
denied  the  freedom  of  the  will,  and  on  this  point 
she  uttered  the  profound  saying:  "To  be  free 
can  only  mean  to  be  permitted  slavishly  to  follow 
one's  inmost  nature. " 

"  Insight  is  free,  but  not  will.  These  are  confused. 
What  we  must  desire  is  fully  determined  in  us ;  it  is,  so 
to  speak,  ourselves;  thereof  we  are  made;  our  will  is 
only,  as  it  were,  a  limb  which  we  can  move  here  or 
there.  .  .  . 

"Only  through  a  joint-insight  (into  the  divinely-led 
course  of  the  world)  can  we  win  freedom." 

But  at  the  same  time  she  knows  that  the  insight 
which  liberates  us  is  conditioned  by  time;  that 
truth  is  only  the  ever-growing  insight  into  the 
real  nature  of  things,  while  "the  Truth,"  which 
every  nation  und  sect  thinks  it  possesses,  is  nothing 
but  a  local  truth,  which  has  its  own  time  in  which 
to  develop,  live,  work,  and  die.  As  a  characteris- 
tic proof  of  this,  Rahel  quotes  the  fact  that  it 
was  the  titled,  ruling,  uniformed  class  that  con- 


Religion  183 

demned  Jesus  as  a  heretic,  blasphemer,  and  insti- 
gator of  revolt,  while  now  the  Christians  are  in 
power  and  condemn  the  others  in  the  same  way. 
The  older  she  grew,  the  more  Rahel  was  filled 
with  that  piety  for  which  she  sought  expression 
above  all  in  the  Bible,  in  Goethe,  Angelus  Silesius, 
Saint- Martin,  and  other  mystical-pantheistic  spir- 
its, whose  thoughts  poured  "as  though  out  of  a 
religious  sea, "  and  who  were  therefore  entirely  op- 
posed to  such  as  construct  a  definite  religion  with  a 
mosaic  of  dogmas:  "  My  mind  is  indignant  and  my 
soul  revolts  at  such  pretensions,"  she  says.  The 
religion  Rahel  had  made  for  herself  was  a  belief 
in  God  which  sometimes  expressed  itself  in  pas- 
sionate supplication  and  exultation,  quite  in  the 
spirit  of  the  Old  Testament.  To  Rahel's  feeling 
God  was  unmistakably  personal,  a  God  to  whom 
she  cries  in  her  need,  on  the  hem  of  whose  mantle 
she  rests — an  all-sustaining,  all-embracing  God, 
upon  whose  aid  she  relies  as  did  David  and  Isaiah. 
But  when  she  thinks,  she  feels  that  this  personi- 
fication of  God  may  be  a  limitation. 

...  "  Even  the  general  conception  of  the  person- 
ality of  a  primal  being  appears  to  me  restricted  and 
arbitrary,  but  I  cannot  help  it,  I  find  myself  always 
brought  back  to  this,  and  I  cannot  let  it  be  taken  from 


1 84  Rahel  Varnhagen 

me ;  the  universe  and  the  whole  spiritual  creation  ap- 
pear to  me  only  as  limbs,  to  which  there  must  be  a 
head.  Without  a  personal  God  everything  seems  to 
me  mutilated,  as  it  were,  deprived  of  that  which  alone 
gives  the  rest  life,  beauty,  and  meaning." 

Nevertheless  she  kept  this  personal  God — al- 
though her  faith  often  passed  into  pantheistic  uni- 
versal feeling — as  she  did  her  belief  in  a  personal 
immortality.  On  both  points  she  differed  from 
Goethe,  who,  in  using  the  word  God,  did  not  at- 
tach any  idea  of  personality  to  it,  and  who  was 
convinced  of  immortality,  but  only  for  those  who 
had  been  able  to  create  it  for  themselves. 

Whether  Rahel  defined  to  herself  this  differ- 
ence between  her  view  of  life  and  Goethe's, 
appears  to  me  uncertain,  and  if  she  did  so,  it  was 
altogether  immaterial  to  her.  For  to  her  as  to 
him  feeling  was  everything  in  these  matters,  and 
she  could  no  more  doubt  Goethe's  piety  than  his 
existence.  Rahel's  metaphysical  needs  were  cer- 
tainly more  urgent  than  his.  On  this  point  there 
is  a  saying  of  Rahel's  which  is  characteristic.  She 
is  speaking  of  Benjamin  Constant,  who  inspired  in 
Mme.  de  Stael  the  great  love  of  her  life.  Rahel 
fully  understood  the  charm  Constant  exercised, 
and  she  enjoyed  his  "enjouement  ironique"  so 


Religion  185 

long  as  it  was  directed  against  the  incongrui- 
ties of  existence.  But  it  annoyed  her  when 
it  took  the  form  of  scepticism  towards  all  the 
profound  questions  of  life.  Just  because  he  is 
right  in  saying  that  life  is  full  of  contradictions 
and  confusion,  says  Rahel,  the  craving  for  reason, 
goodness,  and  justice,  which  is  inherent  in  us,  is  a 
pledge  that  in  some  way  we  shall  attain  them  all. 
And  she  concludes  by  regretting  that  Constant's 
"ironical  humour  came  from  so  deep  a  source,  and 
that  he  did  not  draw  still  deeper  from  that  source.  " 
Rahel's  religious  feeling  has  an  Oriental  earnest- 
ness; her  capacity  of  Jewess,  grown  up  in  an  age 
of  rationalism,  made  of  her  a  freethinker,  it  is  true, 
but  one  who  preserved  her  reverence  for  any  honest 
religious  faith;  she  had  herself  suffered  from  the 
prejudices  against  her  race  and  could  not  fall  into 
intolerance.  If  she  speaks  slightingly  of  roman- 
ticism, it  is  only  because  she  finds  a  lack  of  sin- 
cerity and  seriousness  in  this  "new  Catholicism." 
When,  as  in  ^[ovalis,  she  finds  mysticism  deep  and 
great,  she  loves  it.  But  if,  on  the  one  hand,  she 
understands  romanticism  through  her  love  of 
such  minds  as  Novalis,  Lavater,  Saint-Martin, 
Angelus  Silesius,  on  the  other  she  approaches  the 
age  of  enlightenment  through  her  sympathy  with 


1 86  Rahel  Varnhagen 

Lessing.  And  in  her  foremost  teachers,  Goethe, 
Fichte,  Spinoza,  she  found  that  union  of  lucid 
thought  and  deep  feeling  that  she  loved  above  all. 
The  friend  who  called  her  a  "philosophical  natural- 
ist" indicated  her  standpoint  most  correctly — 
unless  it  be  a  contradiction  in  terms  to  speak  of 
the  standpoint  of  a  subjectivist  thinker,  which  is 
like  that  of  a  sailor  on  a  voyage  of  discovery !  For 
subjectivism  as  regards  one's  view  of  life  implies 
that  the  soul  preserves  a  listening  attitude,  both  to- 
wards the  revelations  that  rise  from  its  own  depths, 
and  those  that  are  borne  in  upon  it  from  the  ex- 
terior world.  To  Rahel  everything  was  reve- 
lation, great  minds  and  little  children,  the  perfect 
creations  of  art  and  the  smallest  works  of  nature. 
She,  who  paid  her  devotions  in  no  church,  lived 
devoutly  at  every  moment,  for,  as  she  herself  said, 
she  found  her  church  everywhere.  And  if  she 
gave  her  faith  a  more  personal  expression  than  did 
Goethe,  she  felt  with  him  that  "life  is  the  great 
primal  essence,  from  which  all  flows,  with  or  with- 
out our  intervention."  To  her  as  to  him  piety 
means  above  all  the  constant  thought  that  the 
conditions  of  this  particular  moment  are  given 
us  as  material  to  work  upon,  so  that  we  may 
thereby  become  conscious  collaborators  with  life. 


Religion  187 

Rahel  was  a  mystic  in  the  sense  that  it  was  by 
intuition,  by  feeling,  not  by  abstract  reasoning, 
that  she  gained  her  insight  into  the  depths  of  life, 
of  death,  and  of  the  human  soul,  and  when  she  was 
faced  by  the  inscrutable  or  the  unknowable,  sought 
light  in  solitary  contemplation  or  some  other 
means  that  lay  within  herself. 

Rahel,  who  "begged  to  be  excused  a  Paradise 
with  angels, "  felt  it  a  necessity  of  her  own  nature, 
of  that  of  humanity,  to  hope  for  "a  holy,  free,  and 
inviolable  state."  And  with  this  hope  of  "ever 
new  experiences"  she  calmed  her  heart  before  the 
thought  of  death. 

On  the  loss  of  dear  friends — losses  which  she  calls 
her  "shedding  of  leaves," — as  during  her  own  re- 
peated attacks  of  illness,  her  thoughts  were  centred 
with  increasing  frequency  upon  "death,  which, 
next  to  life,  we  do  not  understand. " 

Much  as  she  had  meditated  before  on  life's 
incomprehensibility,  in  the  face  of  death  life  be- 
came "the  great,  holy,  amusing  riddle,"  and  the 
possibilities  of  the  new  life  she  divined  "in  mo- 
ments of  true  perception"  became  the  serious 
problem. 

Of  its  solution  she  writes:  "I  confine  myself 
to  the  marvel  of  existence  in  general;  if  this  is 


1 88  Rahel  Varnhagen 

possible,  then  the  incomprehensible  will  one  day 
be  comprehended.  We  must  become  better,  we 
must  be  good;  that  is  the  problem. " 

She  writes  these  wonderful  words  on  death:  "Is 
it  more  wonderful  than  life,  that  torn-off  fragment, 
at  the  end  of  which  it  comes?  He  who  helped  me 
through  the  dark  womb  will  also  bring  me  out  of  the 
dark  earth!  I  will  live;  and  therefore  I  must  live. 
My  sense  of  life,  my  need  of  happiness,  order,  and  rea- 
son, are  to  me  another  pledge  of  all  this:  how  other- 
wise should  I  have  come  by  them?  These  are  my 
God,  my  innermost  recess,  where  are  also  my  temple 
and  my  religion.  If  I  may  die  at  any  moment,  then 
I  am  already  dead;  that  is,  I  continue  to  live  dead. 
But  I  feel  my  life  and  not  death ....  We  shall 
certainly  be  young  again.  We  must  receive  a  new, 
much-enhanced  youth  and  go  on  living  in  it.  And  we 
do  already  live  on  in  one,  an  inner  one." 

But  at  another  time  her  thoughts  of  death  are  more 
pantheistic :  ' '  But,  alas !  we  are  only  a  drop  of  con- 
sciousness. And  I  should  wish  so  much  to  go  back 
into  the  sea,  to  be  nothing  at  all  in  particular ! " 

Of  her  state  of  soul  as  she  was  growing  old  she  gives 
this  beautiful  description:  "After  the  conclusion  of 
our  appointed  lot  we  have  the  same  feelings  as  before 
its  commencement.  A  kind  of  vague,  inquisitive, 
youthful  existence,  an  existence  that  belongs  to  the 
sum  of  being.  If  then,  we  have  once  been  compelled 
to  lose  ourselves,  it  is  a  beautiful  thing  to  experience 
this  little  bliss,  this  second  childhood,  while  still  upon 
earth. 


Religion  189 

Thus  Rahel  lived  a  pious  life  and  died  a  pious 
death  without  having  sought  light,  either  in  life  or 
in  death,  in  any  definite  religion. 

In  the  midst  of  manifold  and  poignant  suffer- 
ings she  preserved  her  faith  in  a  good  and  great 
meaning  in  existence,  in  the  divinity  of  life,  and  in 
its  loftier  connection. 

In  a  deep  sense  it  is  these  feelings  again,  though 
in  the  form  of  the  idea  of  evolution,  that  have 
founded  the  "new  religion,"  the  approach  of 
which  Rahel  divined,  thanks  to  the  "chaste,  rever- 
end solitude  of  the  soul,"  that  was  to  her  the  first 
condition  of  genuine  piety,  as  of  profound  reli- 
gious revelation.  Fichte  may  have  confirmed 
Rahel  in  her  inner  conviction  that  individuality 
involves  the  promise  of  eternity.  He  had,  she 
said,  "turned  her  best  heart  outward  and  made  it 
fruitful.  "  His  doctrine  of  the  ego  harmonised  with 
Rahel' s  individualism,  and  the  element  of  vital 
force  and  personal  power  in  Fichte  inspired  in  her 
a  deep  admiration  for  her  "dear  lord  and  master," 
at  whose  sudden  death  she  wrote  the  affecting 
letter  in  which  she  says  that  Germany  had  now 
closed  one  of  her  eyes  and  that  she  trembled  for 
the  other,  Goethe. 

But  she  subscribed  neither  to  Fichte's  nor  to 


190  Rahel  Varnhagen 

any  one  else's  system.  For  in  every  one  of  them 
she  found  that  something  "living  with  us,  be- 
longing to  us"  had  been  immured  "as  a  dead, 
killed  thing."  And  therefore  she  knew  that  her 
own  opposition  to  every  system  was  not  due  to 
"the  spirit  of  contradiction"  but  to  self-preser- 
vation. She,  like  Goethe,  could  never  for  a  mo- 
ment doubt  the  sovereignty  of  life — changing, 
developing  life — and  any  attempt  to  prescribe, 
in  any  respect,  a  fixed  form  for  what  was  con- 
stantly changing  was  to  her,  as  to  him,  foolishness. 

The  divine  was  as  near  to  her  as  the  air,  it  was 
in  this  that  her  soul  lived  and  moved  and  had  its 
being.  Indeed,  it  has  been  rightly  said  of  her 
that  the  soul  of  the  world  vibrated  in  her  soul 
with  such  strength  that  her  fragile  being  trembled 
with  the  force  of  the  God  it  enclosed.  But  any 
attempt  to  approach  God's  nature  with  analysis 
and  argument  "cut  into  her  like  sharp  knives." 

Rahel  has  expressed  the  new  religious  morality 
of  our  time  and  its  only  religious  conviction  in  the 
profound  words  she  wrote  a  few  days  before  her 
death : 

"The  more  immanent  life  there  is  in  a  convic- 
tion, the  deeper  and  richer  will  be  its  association;  the 
more  it  appeals  and  corresponds  to  all  our  capabilities, 


Religion  191 

the  more  difficult  it  will  be  to  summarise  it  and  set 
it  forth  just  like  a  piece  of  machinery.  But  every 
system  tends  to  become  a  machine.  There  is  only 
one  great  and  living  organised  system:  the  created 
world,  which  is  still  creating  itself." 


CHAPTER  V 

FELLOW-FEELING 

IT  has  already  been  mentioned  that  in  Rahel,  as 
in  the  rest  of  the  young  Jewish  community,  the 
battles  and  victories  of  Frederick  the  Great 
awakened  the  sense  of  solidarity  which  causes  the 
various  elements  of  a  nation,  in  spite  of  their 
dissimilarities,  to  feel  as  one  people.  In  this  re- 
spect war  has  a  uniting  power,  which  peace  un- 
fortunately does  not  yet  possess. 

But  when  Rahel  called  the  Jews  of  Berlin 
"Frederick  the  Great's  Jews, "  she  was  thinking  in 
the  first  place  of  the  new  spirit  of  the  age,  which 
Frederick  had  fostered  and  which  extended  its 
influence  through  him — the  spirit  of  free  thought 
and  tolerance.  We  all  had  a  share  in  his  victories, 
in  his  judgment,  says  Rahel;  "he  gave  room 
for  every  plant  in  his  land  thrown  open  to  the 
sun." 

And  unless  the  Jews  had  really  been  warmed  by 
192 


Fellow-Feeling  193 

this  sun,  neither  Rahel  nor  the  rest  of  the  young 
Jews  would  have  felt  that  they  were  Prussians. 

But  in  Rahel  the  feeling  of  patriotism  was  born 
simultaneously  with  that  of  cosmopolitanism, 
and  therefore  both  were  unusually  deep  for  her 
time.  Like  the  foremost  of  the  younger  genera- 
tion in  every  country,  she  embraced  the  ideals 
of  the  French  Revolution,  and  to  her  these  were 
personified  in  their  most  eminent  representative, 
Mirabeau,  whom  she  often  saw  during  his  visit  to 
Berlin.  He  was,  she  says  later,  a  man,  in  the 
making  of  whom  nature  had  rejoiced,  as  he  after- 
wards rejoiced  in  nature,  which  made  her  rejoice 
in  him  again,  and  this  mutual  rejoicing  made  the 
rest  of  us  rejoice  in  both. 

But  it  was  not  only  in  her  youth  that  Rahel  put 
her  faith  in  the  ideas  of  which  Mirabeau  was  the 
foremost  champion.  In  spite  of  Goethe's  dislike, 
certainly  more  opportunist  than  profound,  of  the 
French  Revolution,  in  spite  of  the  reaction  of 
romanticism  against  it,  Rahel  maintained  through 
life  her  democratic  ideas  and  her  republicanism. 
For  her  aristocratic  individualism  was  so  profound 
that  it  included  ideas  which  outwardly  appeared 
to  exclude  each  other. 

All  her  life  she  sympathised  with  the  working 


194  Rahel  Varnhagen 

classes,  "because  they  are  the  most  numerous  and 
the  poorest. "  Indeed,  their  sufferings  sometimes 
make  her  wonder  whether  the  refined  culture, 
which  was  her  highest  gratification,  might  not  be 
too  dearly  bought. 

"  I  also  considered  the  whole  mass  of  human  culture, 
and  whether  its  quintessence,  the  highest  delight  of 
noble,  richly-gifted  persons  in  each  other,  and  every 
other  bright  and  lofty  element  in  life,  is  worth  all  the 
suffering  and  misery  of  those  whom  it  has  required 
for  centuries  as  its  manure.  Working  carmen  and 
myself  suggested  this  thought  to  me." 

But  if  she  had  really  been  confronted  by  the 
question  whether,  for  instance,  she  would  sacri- 
fice the  existence  of  the  great  minds,  if  that  were 
for  the  moment  the  condition  of  the  welfare  of  the 
many,  she  would  certainly  have  answered  no. 
With  prophetic  vision  she  saw  the  possibility  of  a 
state  of  things,  in  which  the  great  and  the  small 
would  mutually  create  fully  human  conditions  of 
life  for  each  other.  Since  her  intuition  was  thus 
in  advance  of  the  time,  she  was  ready,  when  St.- 
Simonism  appeared,  to  perceive  that  it  aimed  at 
just  this  higher  state  of  things,  that  it  was  the 
logical  consequence  of  the  innermost  aim  of  the 
French  Revolution — the  establishment  of  human 


Fellow-Feeling  195 

worth  and  the  elevation  of  the  human  race.  Ra- 
hel's  view  of  society  included  both  the  idealism 
which  creates  the  future,  and  the  realism  which 
forms  the  present.  Thus,  during  the  Napoleonic 
wars  she  is  an  ardent  patriot,  who  clearly  per- 
ceives the  immediate  problem — that  of  liberating 
Germany  from  the  French  domination — and  she 
finds  the  warmest  expressions  for  her  love  of  her 
afflicted  country.  But  never  for  a  moment  does 
a  spark  of  national  hatred  shoot  up  within  her, 
and  war  itself  she  hates  with  her  strongest  ab- 
horrence. It  is  to  her  "the  proof  that  we  are 
still  living  in  the  midst  of  the  greatest  barbarity; 
that  wound-giving  war,  insane  capture,  and  de- 
fence, may  come  to  our  very  threshold;  that  we 
are  not  above  the  level  of  savages. "  That  Varn- 
hagen  is  out  among  the  perils  is  her  personal 
sorrow.  But  this  gives  way  before  her  deep  sym- 
pathy with  the  universal  distress,  and  before  her 
shame  at  the  terrible  events,  unworthy  of  human- 
ity, which  she  is  witnessing. 

"O  dear,  beautiful,  slighted  peace!  O  God,  how 
beautiful  is  peace!  As  beautiful  as  youth,  innocence, 
health,  all  things  which  we  only  appreciate  when  we 
mourn  their  loss .  .  .  ." 

She  abhors  all  manifestations  of  chauvinism.     The 


196  Rahel  Varnhagen 

qualities  with  which  we  Germans  ought  to  adorn  our- 
selves, she  says,  are  "rectitude,  moderation,  and  obedi- 
ence to  the  law."  Against  the  boastful  and  narrow 
forms  of  nationalism  she  aims  the  following  words : 

"  My  country  shall  never  make  me  narrow-minded 
The  folly  that  is  committed  there  vexes  and 
surprises  me  enough." 

"The  time  will  come  when  national  pride  will  be 
looked  upon  as  self-love  or  other  vanity  is  now,  and 
war  as  brawling." 

And  to  the  interpretation  of  history  that  en- 
courages chauvinism  she  objects  that  history  in 
the  hands  of  the  unintelligent  only  does  harm, 
since  every  error  has  its  ancestors  and  will  have 
descendants ;  that  the  world,  light,  and  nature  are 
the  real  history,  and  that  the  intellectual  develop- 
ment of  nations  is  their  true  history. 

Of  Rahel  it  may  be  said  with  truth  that  no 
dogma,  no  patriotism,  no  love  is  capable  of 
corrupting  her  sense  of  justice.  And  she  insists 
that  it  ought  to  be  the  special  task  of  women 
to  act  as  the  conscience  of  their  male  friends 
and  prompt  them  to  act  for  the  good  of  hu- 
manity. Otherwise,  Rahel  thinks,  women  are 
only  a  heavy  ballast  in  society.  Every  woman, 
says  Rahel,  ought  to  be  infinitely  more  soulful, 
noble,  good,  and  helpful  than  the  man  to  whom  she 


Fellow-Feeling  197 

belongs  ....  That  women  ought  always  to  be 
neutral,  so  as  to  relieve  impartially  the  distress  of 
all,  is  another  of  her  sayings.  That  development 
always  necessitates  some  form  of  strife,  Rahel 
understood  quite  well,  but  she  foresaw  a  future  in 
which  strife  and  victories  of  minds  will  be  the  only 
surviving  form  of  the  rivalry  of  nations  as  of 
individuals. 

"Science  it  is  that  now  claims  its  veni,  vidi,  vici. 
Let  the  rude  battles  of  the  poor  nations  give  way! 
Professors  should  be  their  victors! " 

"  The  world  is  no  longer  so  uncivilised  as  to  be  fash- 
ioned and  taught  to  think  by  warlike  deeds.  This 
must  be  done  by  our  best  thinkers  and  poets,  the 
noblest  of  the  nation." 

Far  from  sharing  in  the  hatred  of  Napoleon, 
Rahel,  like  Goethe,  entertained  a  great  admi- 
ration for  Napoleon's  mighty  personality.  In 
the  midst  of  German  Gallophobia  she  preserved 
and  gave  utterance  to  her  admiration  for  the  great 
values  of  French  culture.  She  herself  practised, 
and  was  proud  that  the  Jews  showed  more  of  it 
than  the  Christians,  that  liberal  and  effective  sym- 
pathy which  does  not  enquire  after  nationality 
but  only  after  need  of  help.  There  was  a  time  that 
Rahel  called  her  ' '  festival  of  benevolence. ' '  Rahel 


198  Rahel  Varnhagen 

was  in  Prague,  when  she  found  herself  in  a  position 
to  bring  order  and  seriousness  into  the  voluntary 
nursing  of  the  wounded.  She  now  employed  in 
the  public  service  the  talent  she  had  hitherto  tried 
only  in  private  life,  that  of  bringing  people  to- 
gether, since  she  had  the  power  of  drawing  out 
the  best,  the  uniting  elements  in  human  nature. 
She  is  able  to  write:  "God  has  smiled  upon  me; 
I  am  of  some  help."  She,  who  is  "insignificant, 
of  humble  birth,  and  impoverished,"  now  finds  her- 
self in  a  position  to  do  good  on  a  large  scale;  she 
has  the  happiness  of  seeing  severely-wounded 
soldiers  "suddenly  smile  with  joy"  at  a  word  from 
her.  She  comforts  the  sick,  encourages  and 
admonishes  the  convalescent.  And  how  she  did 
it  we  may  guess  from  these  words  of  hers:  "I 
often  weep;  they  have  mothers  as  we  have,  who 
would  weep  themselves  to  death  if  they  saw  them 
now.  ..."  She  rejoices  at  the  discovery  of  her 
own  talent  for  organisation  and  management,  and 
in  her  consciousness  of  it  she  exclaims:  "If  only 
I  had  some  profession!"  The  same  feeling  took 
hold  of  her  during  her  activity  in  Berlin  at  the  time 
of  the  cholera  in  1830.  As  she  then  gained  insight 
into  the  conditions  of  the  relief  of  the  poor,  it  be- 
came clear  to  her  that  women  were  wanted  on  the 


Fellow-Feeling  199 

boards  of  management,  so  that  cleanliness,  clothes, 
work,  and  so  on  might  be  obtained  for  the  poor 
when  in  health. 

In  a  word,  it  was  for  collective  motherliness  that 
Rahel  wished  to  prepare  a  place,  it  was  to  find  an 
outlet  for  her  activities  in  this  direction  that  she 
desired  "a  profession."  But  with  a  perfectly 
correct  perception  of  what  was  the  only  office  she, 
with  her  nature,  was  qualified  to  fill,  she  at  once 
explains  that  she  would  like  to  be — "a  princess!" 
In  other  words,  to  have  power  to  exercise  in  a 
fully  personal  and  grand  style  the  activity  she 
individually  loved,  according  to  the  beautiful 
words:  "Making  a  business  of  doing  good  is 
my  only  amusement,  consolation,  and  source  of 
strength!" 

Rahel's  outcry  during  that  Vienna  Congress: 
"Fie,  Christians!  And  so  they  are  tinkering  to- 
gether something  in  a  congress  again!"  is  one 
among  many  expressions  of  her  view  of  the  policy 
which,  at  the  Restoration,  made  a  system  of  re- 
action on  a  Christian  basis.  But  Rahel  found 
fault  not  only  with  the  diplomacy  and  war  of  the 
old  regime;  she  regarded  even  the  reforms,  which 
were  looked  upon  as  so  important  by  the  liberals, 


200  Rah  el  Varnhagen 

as  worn  out.  It  was  time,  she  thought,  to  re- 
cognise one's  ignorance  and  to  leave  off  building 
society  upon  no  other  foundation  than  fables  of 
one's  own  making:  "A  new  discovery  must  be 
made.  .  .  .  Man  has  still  imagination  to  spare 
for  ideal  conditions,  and  this  imagination  demands 
material,  food.  ..."  She  hopes  for  a  great  man, 
capable  of  "discovering  a  lofty  view  of  life  of 
universal  application,  a  new  religious  element,  so 
to  speak,  which  should  contain  a  severer  view  of 
morality,  and  which  should  give  to  all  prescribed 
actions  another  direction,  a  new  ambition. " 

Nothing  more  clearly  shows  Rahel's  prophetic 
power  than  the  fact  that  as  early  as  1820  she  was 
aware  of  the  inner  connection  between  the  future 
and  higher  order  of  society  and  a  religious  re- 
newal. She  knew  also — the  first  French  Revo- 
lution had  taught  her — that  the  compact  "errors, 
which  it  is  impossible  to  get  out  of  people's  heads, 
finally  fall  with  those  heads."  She  foresaw  the 
Revolution  of  July,  and  she  felt  that,  although 
the  peoples  of  Europe  were  clamouring  for  liberty, 
the  question  at  bottom  was  one  of  "equality  and 
rights. "  As  to  the  forms  of  these  Rahel  had  no 
hard-and-fast  views. 

What  Rahel  says  of  herself  in  general  is  appli- 


Fellow-Feeling  201 

cable  to  her  political  opinions:  "I  never  have  before- 
hand any  result  in  sight  or  in  my  mind  and  am  always 
ready  to  conceive  things  in  an  innocent  way." 

Against  the  superstitious  political  doctrines  of  the 
Romantic  School  she  directs  such  ideas  as  these: 
<(  Every  constitution  is  nothing  else  than  a  rule  for  the 
welfare  of  all  in  a  given  case." 

"  The  time  is  a  spirit  and  creates  its  own  body." 
"The  spirit  of  the  time  is  nothing  but  the  generali- 
sation of  each  particular  conviction." 

With  a  keenness  of  vision  that  was  equalled  by 
few  men  of  her  time,  Rahel  saw  that  the  promises 
of  constitutions,  by  which,  during  the  Napoleonic 
wars,  the  governments  had  tried  to  calm  their 
peoples,  had  "outgrown  the  promisers  as  children 
outgrow  their  parents."  And  suddenly,  Rahel 
continues,  the  children  confront  their  parents  with 
powers  and  rights  which  the  latter  never  thought 
about  at  the  christening ! 

What  liberalism  aimed  at  in  her  day,  and  what 
socialism  was  beginning  to  demand,  appeared  to 
Rahel  as  links  in  the  same  necessary  development. 
She  saw  the  madness  of  a  social  order  which  de- 
mands, in  her  own  words,  that  the  majority  shall 
show  themselves  good  Christians  and  renounce 
the  good  things  of  this  world  in  favour  of  the 
minority;  a  social  order  in  which,  as  she  points 


202  Rahel  Varnhagen 

out,  industry,  inventiveness,  and  intelligence  are 
not  in  themselves  sufficient  to  secure  to  their  pos- 
sessors conditions  of  life  worthy  of  humanity;  a 
social  order  the  movement  of  which  Rahel  truth- 
fully calls  circular  and  not  progressive. 

"All  movement  must  be  referred  to  something  hu- 
man ;  that  is,  in  this  case,  something  universal,  some- 
thing that  concerns  all  men,  otherwise  all  movement 
will  finally  become  pagoda-like,  childishly  ridi- 
culous, meaningless.  That,  wherein  all  men  cannot 
finally  share,  is  not  a  good  thing;  that,  wherein  they 
ought  not  to  share,  is  bad .  .  .  . " 

Just  as  it  was  a  Frenchman,  Saint-Martin,  who 
during  the  last  phase  of  Rahel's  life  most  inti- 
mately harmonised  with  her  religious  mysticism, 
so  was  it  another  Frenchman,  Saint-Simon,  who 
during  the  same  period  gave  her  prophetic  vision 
its  direction  in  social  questions.  Saint-Simon 
was  all  tHe  more  sympathetic  to  her,  in  that  his 
view  of  life  also  had  the  same  fundamental  tone  as 
her  own.  She  only  feels  happy  in  the  new  doc- 
trine, since  she  has  really  been  preparing  herself 
for  it  all  her  life. 

"  It  .  .  .  finds  in  me  a  fully-living,  well-arranged 
supply  of  ideas.  I  have  not  suffered  alone,  but  with 
all  mankind,  perhaps  in  a  way  that  is  unique .... 


Fellow-Feeling  203 

And  nothing  interests  me  deeply  but  that  which  may 
make  the  earth  better  for  us,  the  earth  itself  and  our 
actions  upon  it." 

Saint-Simonism  is  to  her  "the  new,  grandly-dis- 
covered instrument,  which  at  last  touches  the  great, 
ancient  wound,  the  history  of  mankind  upon  earth .  . 
It  has  already  brought  to  light  irrefutable  truths, 
arranged  the  real  questions  in  order,  and  answered 
many  important  ones .  .  .  ." 

"How  to  beautify  the  earth:  my  old  theme.  Free- 
dom for  all  human  development :  the  same .  .  .  . " 

"I  am  the  most  profoundly-convinced  Saint-Si- 
monist.  For  my  whole  faith  consists  in  the  conviction 
of  the  progress  and  perfectibility  of  the  universe,  its  de- 
velopment to  ever  greater  understanding  and  welfare 
in  the  highest  sense ;  happiness  and  making  happy." 

And  Rahel  knew  that  the  condition  of  all  was  to 
"find  that  unity  of  life,  in  which  vocation  and  in- 
clination are  merged  in  each  other." 

Rahel's  specific  objection  to  Saint-Simonism 
is  that  it  calls  itself  a  new  religion.  For,  she 
thinks,  it  was  doubtless  religious,  but  had  not  the 
distinctive  marks  which  belong  to  the  idea  of  reli- 
gion. Nor  need  it  make  use  of  the  word  religion, 
she  thinks,  for  it  has  the  sanctified  knowledge — the 
knowledge,  capable  of  proof — of  the  good,  the  whole- 
some, the  just,  everything  that  must  now  be  to  us 
"God's  holy  countenance. " 

Rahel's  deep  social  feeling  did  not,  however, 


204  Rahel  Varnhagen 

lead  her  astray  into  the  two  prejudices  that 
flourish  in  our  time.  First,  that  of  setting  duties 
towards  society  before  duties  towards  one's  self. 
Rahel,  like  Goethe,  like  all  genuine  humanists, 
knew  that  I  must  be  something  myself  before  I 
can  be  anything  to  the  whole  community,  and 
that  much  inner  life  is  required  to  become  any- 
thing. The  other  prejudice  is  that  of  assuming  the 
existence  of  all  the  virtues  in  the  uneducated  class, 
but  in  the  educated  class  the  contrary  state  of 
things.  Rahel  chose  her  friends  from  all  classes, 
wherever  she  found  a  genuine  human  element, 
but  to  find  this  combined  with  genuine  refinement 
was  her  highest  joy.  "Noblemen  I  am  often 
fond  of,  the  nobility  never,"  she  says.  She 
sharply  corrects  the  want  of  civility  a  countess 
permits  herself  towards  her.  But  she  lets  her 
faithful  maidservant  take  her  meals  at  her  own 
table  when  not  well,  and  when,  during  Rahel's  last 
illness,  this  servant  calls  her,  as  usual,  "Gnddige 
Frau,"  Rahel  exclaims,  as  though  with  relief, 
"Ah,  we  Ve  done  with  Gracious  Madams  now! 
Call  me  Rahel. " 

These  little  incidents  were  of  a  piece  with  the 
rest  of  Rahel's  behaviour  to  her  servants.  When 
some  one  objected  that  she  was  "spoiling"  them 


Fellow-Feeling  205 

by  too  much  friendliness  and  consideration,  she 
replied  that  this  was  not  impossible,  but  that  in 
that  case  she  was  egoistic  enough  to  prefer  to 
spoil  her  servants  by  such  treatment,  rather  than 
by  treating  them  otherwise  to  spoil  herself. 

Even  in  the  now  burning  servant  question  she 
was  so  much  before  her  time  that  she  found  it 
"unnatural  to  be  a  domestic."  And  she  was 
convinced  that  those  mistresses  who  complain 
most  of  their  servants,  would,  if  serving  themselves 
give  occasion  for  just  as  many,  if  not  more  com- 
plaints ! 

Rahel's  social  feeling  was  an  unusually  deep  one 
for  her  time.  "To  help  God  in  his  creatures "  was 
her  delight.  But  she  was  not  only  charitable,  she 
was  just.  Therefore  she  longed  for  "just,  pious, 
pure-hearted,  true  inner  equality  among  men. " 
And  here  it  is  above  all  that  she  joins  "Young 
Germany."  She  feels  she  is  living  in  a  "transi- 
tion to  better  conditions, "  and  she  thinks  that  in 
certain  cases  these  conditions  would  come  about  of 
themselves,  if  governments  did  not  quite  positively 
work  in  opposition  to  the  welfare  of  the  people. 

' '  To  all  nations  the  heavy,  dark,  patient  earth  offered 
her  fulness ;  there  was  no  need  of  warfare  or  lying — nor 
of  proclamations  of  justification ! " 


206  Rahel  Varnhagen 

The  reactionary  phase  after  the  Napoleonic 
wars  did  not  quench  in  Rahel  the  glow  of  the  ideals 
of  her  youth,  whereas  so  many  of  the  men  who,  like 
her,  had  hailed  the  French  Revolution  with  fiery 
young  hearts,  had  become  backsliders  from  its 
ideas.  And  when  those  whose  minds  had  once 
revolted  against  the  misery  of  society  began  to 
talk  of  the  will  of  God  or  the  order  of  the  world  or 
historical  necessity,  Rahel  cried:  "We  shall  make 
it  different!" 

So  long  as  she  could,  she  relieved  the  distress 
with  which  she  personally  came  in  contact,  espe- 
cially the  distress  of  poor  old  people.  But  she 
held  aloof  from  public  charity,  which  she  found 
too  often  combined  with  the  spirit  of  prodigality, 
a  spirit  which  she  found  inconceivable  when  pov- 
erty was  always  pressing  heavily  on  the  majority. 
And,  moreover,  she  clearly  saw  how  impotent 
charity  is  on  the  whole  in  dealing  with  a  state 
of  society  the  foundation  of  which  needs  to  be 
reformed. 

From  1807,  when  Fichte  gave  his  "Addresses 
to  the  German  Nation,"  until  his  death,  Rahel's 
social  circle  took  its  tone  from  him.  If  she  after- 
wards compared  his  influence  on  her  with  that  of 
Saint-Simon,  she  did  so  presumably  from  the  point 


Fellow-Feeling  207 

of  view  that  the  highest  aim  of  each  was  the  en- 
nobling of  mankind,  although  Fichte  laid  more 
stress  on  the  individual,  and  Saint-Simon  more 
on  the  social  conditions  necessary  thereto,  and 
although  these  two  great  minds  sought  by 
different  paths  to  lead  men  towards  this  end. 

For  this  end  Rahel  also  lived,  directly  and  in- 
directly, every  moment  of  her  life.  Just  as  Rahel 
united  in  a  great  synthesis  aristocratic-individ- 
ualistic and  democratic-social  views  of  society, 
so  were  pessimism  and  optimism  merged  together 
in  her,  as  in  George  Eliot,  to  form  that  view  of  life 
which  the  latter  called  "meliorism."  And  is 
not  this  the  only  view  of  life  possible  to  one  who  is 
capable  both  of  observing  and  thinking,  both  of 
feeling  and  dreaming? 

Rahel  never  shared  the  longing  of  the  romantic- 
ists for  bygone  times.  On  the  contrary,  she  was 
filled  with  ever-increasing  admiration  for  the 
present,  "the  beloved,  honoured  present. "  And  it 
is  characteristic  of  her  clear  sight  that  she  in- 
stances the  growth  of  the  feeling  of  solidarity  as 
the  surest  proof  of  the  progress  of  the  race;  she 
points  out  that  Europe  is  now  thrown  into  a  state 
of  agitation  if  "injustice  is  committed  in  any 
corner  of  it."  She  indicates  the  increasingly- 


208  Rahel  Varnhagen 

conscious  desire  that  all  should  not  only  be  better 
but  should  be  able  to  live  better.  She  instances 
the  material  improvements  that  have  been  intro- 
duced in  her  time,  and  exclaims:  "Yes,  it  is  a 
pleasure  to  me  to  live  now,  since  the  world  is  really, 
actually  moving,  since  ideas,  happy  dreams  enter 
into  life,  and  since  mechanics,  industry,  inventions, 
and  associations  are  realising  these  dreams." 
Knowledge  of  what  ought  to  be,  Rahel  thinks, 
will  finally  conquer,  even  if  this  knowledge  has  to 
wait  "a  thousand  years  for  the  sunshine  that  is  to 
make  the  plant  grow!"  She  knows  that  "the 
present  is  also  future,"  and  that  to  possess  the 
future  one  does  not  need  to  live  in  it.  And  her 
joyous  conviction,  "it's  moving,  the  world," 
is  no  less  joyous  because  she  goes  on  to  say  that 
the  world  moves  too  slowly  to  allow  her  to  be 
present  at  the  feast. 

Nothing  more  beautifully  illustrates  Rahel's 
fellow-feeling  with  mankind  than  her  own  words, 
written  in  April,  1831 : 

"Now  I  have  thought  out  an  epitaph  for  my 
self.     It  is  to  run : 

"  'Good  people,  when  anything  good  befalls  man- 
kind, in  your  joy  have  a  kindly  thought  of  mine. '  ! 


CHAPTER  VI 

SOCIAL  LIFE 

THERE  is  something  that  we  people  of  the 
present  day  feel  the  want  of  in  the  midst  of  our 
many-sided  activity,  our  feverishly-competitive 
work;  something  that  we  miss  more  or  less  con- 
sciously and  that  we  are  in  the  habit  of  calling 
"time  to  live."  One  might  write  a  book  on  this 
significant  expression;  here  I  only  touch  upon 
complaint  from  one  side — that  part  of  our 
existence  that  is  called  social  life. 

We  are  all  agreed  that  nowadays  we  have  no 
social  life  in  the  old  meaning  of  the  term.  We 
encounter  one  another  on  all  sorts  of  occasions,  but 
we  seldom  really  meet.  We  usually  go  home  with- 
out having  exchanged  any  ideas  that  have  brought 
us  nearer  to  each  other's  real  nature  or  nearer  to 
reality  in  a  single  respect.  Instead  of  the  sense 
of  intellectual  acquisition  and  agreeable  repose 

that  a  private  reunion  ought  to  leave  behind  it, 

209 


210  Rahel  Varnhagen 

we  take  home  with  us  in  most  cases  the  impression 
of  a  loss. 

Whose  fault  is  this?  The  men's,  say  the  women. 
They  are  communicative  with  each  other  in  the 
smoking-room  and  at  the  club,  but  have  no  mind 
for  the  soulful  intercourse  of  former  days,  at  once 
refined  and  confidential,  with  women.  But  are 
the  men  really  to  blame  for  all  the  evil  in  this 
world?  As  regards  social  life  in  particular,  the 
truth  is,  of  course,  so  well  known  as  to  be  a 
commonplace,  that  it  is  woman  who  shapes  social 
life  and  gives  it  its  tone  and  substance.  Is  it  not 
possible  that  one  of  the  causes  of  the  disparity 
between  what  social  life  is  and  what  it  might 
be  may  be  looked  for  in  the  modern  innovation, 
that  not  only  do  the  men  work  hard,  harder  than 
formerly,  but  that  many  women  also  work  and 
thus  arrive  tired  and  listless  at  the  gatherings 
where  formerly  they  were  the  living  force?  Can 
the  men  of  our  time  say  that  they  receive  more 
from  the  women  than  the  women  from  them  in  the 
way  of  powerful,  personal  impressions,  stimulating 
talk,  health-giving  cheerfulness  ?  Hardly ! 

But  the  modern  woman's  equality  with  men  in 
the  matter  of  the  burden  of  daily  work  is  not  the 
only  cause.  There  are  deeper-lying  reasons  why 


Social  Life  211 

social  life  has  lost  its  significance  even  as  re- 
freshment— recreation  in  the  literal  meaning  of  the 
word — and  still  more  as  a  means  of  putting  ideas 
in  circulation  and  extending  the  intellectual 
horizon.  As  social  life  is  an  expression  of  life  it- 
self, of  the  tendency  of  development,  of  the  mis- 
takes or  advances  that  are  taking  place,  we  can 
find,  by  comparing  a  modern  social  evening  in  an 
intellectual  circle  with  the  pictures  we  have  of 
Rahel's  gatherings,  the  chief  difference  between 
the  tendency  of  her  time  and  that  of  our 
own  to  be  this:  the  highest  aim  of  the  former 
was  culture,  that  of  the  latter  is  tangible 
results. 

During  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury we  may  say  that  intellectual  interests  in 
Germany  were  applied  to  literature,  the  theatre, 
and  other  arts,  while  political  life  was  dead. 
A  book,  an  evening  at  the  theatre,  an  article  in 
a  review  were  at  that  time  great  events. 

Goethe's  ideal  of  culture  was  also  that  of  the 
age.  And  this  ideal  was  the  loftiest,  for  it  in- 
volved a  constant  striving  to  unite  organically 
the  best  intellectual  values  with  one's  own  per- 
sonality, and  to  make  of  one's  self  the  highest 
possible  intellectual  value. 


212  Rahel  Varnhagen 

In  Germany  at  this  time,  as  in  France  a  gen- 
eration earlier,  women  exercised  a  great  influence 
as  vehicles  of  culture.  They  did  not  create  works  of 
art,  seldom  wrote  books,  did  not  systematise  ideas. 
But  they  assisted  the  mutual  agreement  between 
different  departments  of  culture  and  the  dissemi- 
nation of  the  various  products  of  culture;  they 
thus  performed  in  the  intellectual  world  the 
same  task  that  insects  perform  in  the  world  of 
plants. 

When  the  men  of  that  time  speak  of  the  women 
who  exercised  in  Berlin  this  rich  influence  on  in- 
tellectual life,  there  is  always  one  to  whom  they 
all  ascribe  not  only  a  mediative  function,  but  an 
inspiring  one. 

As  in  the  flourishing  period  of  Athenian  history 
we  have  glimpses  of  the  figure  of  Aspasia,  who, 
herself  creating  nothing,  was  to  Socrates  an  in- 
spiration of  wisdom,  to  Pericles  of  eloquence, 
to  Sophocles  of  poetry,  and  to  Phidias  of  beauty 
of  line,  so  we  divine  in  the  background  of  the 
Berlin  of  Schleiermacher  and  the  Humboldts, 
Fichte  and  Hegel,  the  Romantic  School  and  Young 
Germany,  the  figure  of  another  woman,  Rahel,  who 
exercised  a  similar  influence. 

It  would  carry  us  too  far  to  quote  even  a  small 


Social  Life  213 

part  of  the  references  to  Rahel  which  confirm 
what  is  here  said. 

Schleiermacher,  her  friend  of  many  years,  says : 
"Rahel  presents  the  rare  phenomenon  of  a  human 
being  who  is  always  concentrated,  who  can  always 
command  her  whole  self. "  Alexander  von  Hum- 
boldt  calls  her  his  "long-proved  friend"  and  lays 
stress  on  the  extraordinary  circumstance  that, 
with  so  much  suffering,  Rahel  had  preserved  such 
cheerfulness  and  gentleness,  that  with  so  much 
genius  she  also  possessed  so  much  heart.  Wil- 
helm  von  Humboldt,  who  in  her  young  days  found 
her  "surprisingly  sensible  and  witty,"  indeed,  the 
most  entertaining  person  in  Berlin,  says,  after 
the  publication  of  her  letters,  that  it  could  be  said 
of  this  book,  as  of  no  other,  that  there  was  not  a 
dead  letter  in  it.  And  he  testifies  that  he  had 
never  met  Rahel  personally  without  her  giving 
him  the  "suggestion"  of  a  serious  reflection  or 
a  living  emotion;  that  her  mental  development 
was  her  own  work  and  that  her  intercourse  with 
notable  men  had  had  little  influence  upon  her. 
For,  on  the  one  hand,  she  had  already  worked 
out  her  fundamental  views  before  she  came  in 
contact  with  them,  and,  on  the  other,  both  her 
ideas  and  their  form  were  original  to  such  a 


214  Rahel  Varnhagen 

degree  that  it  was  impossible  to  attribute  them 
to  any  influence  from  without.  "Above  all," 
he  concludes,  "truth  was  a  distinguishing  trait 
in  her  intellectual  and  moral  nature."  Ranke 
speaks  of  her  having  the  instinct  of  a  Pythia. 
Oelsner  calls  her  an  "explorer  of  souls"  and  at 
the  same  time  a  glorious  child,  splashing  in 
the  waves  of  time,  but  a  child  with  an  instinct 
that  carries  her  further  than  all  the  "school 
and  worldly -wisdom "  of  men.  Another  found 
in  one  of  her  sayings  "matter  for  thought  for 
a  whole  lifetime. "  Gentz  compares  Rahel's  rich, 
ever-active,  and  fertile  understanding  with  the  male 
element,  his  own  boundless  sensibility  with  the 
female;  and  so,  he  says,  together  they  produced 
"ideas  and  feelings  and  sayings,  all  quite  unprece- 
dented. "  Goethe  and  Jean  Paul,  the  romanticist 
and  Young  Germany,  all  agreed  in  their  opinion 
that  Rahel  possessed  such  depth  of  thought  and 
feeling  that  a  flash  from  her  soul  "illuminated  far 
wider  expanses  than  sheets  of  dissertations. " 

Is  any  better  proof  required  of  the  uniqueness 
of  Rahel's  personality?  For  it  has  only  been 
given  to  a  few  exceptional  persons  to  be  held  in 
estimation  by  three  consecutive  and  mutually 
counteracting  periods. 


Social  Life  215 

To  Rahel's  first  salon,  formed  entirely  by  the 
power  of  her  personality,  belonged  the  three 
pairs  of  brothers,  the  Schlegels,  the  Humboldts, 
and  the  Tiecks;  Schleiermacher,  Fichte,  J.  von 
Muller,  Gentz,  Fouque,  Prince  Louis  Ferdinand, 
and,  for  a  shorter  time,  Kleist,  and  several  others, 
both  Germans  and  foreigners,  of  more  or  less 
celebrity.  Among  the  foreigners  was  the  Prince 
de  Ligne,  one  of  the  choicest  personalities  of  the 
age,  a  master  of  the  social  tone  of  the  ancien  re- 
gime, the  tone  that  was  Rahel's  ideal  for  inter- 
course. She  found  Berlin  society  "rude";  it 
caused  her  "a  real,  incessant  pain, "  but  De  Ligne's 
tone,  on  the  other  hand,  was  "a  real  green- 
sward, a  sofa,  a  gondola  for  the  soul. "  But  that 
was  just  what  Rahel's  own  social  gatherings 
became. 

The  most  immediate  influence  of  Rahel's  salon 
was  that  her  countrymen  began  to  see  what  a  con- 
versational tone,  light  and  full  of  meaning,  ought 
to  be.  She.  herself  found  the  German  language 
still  somewhat  undeveloped  as  regards  "life  for 
the  day, "  and  she  tried  to  prepare  the  way  for  that 
" sociableness  in  words"  which  she  hoped  the  Ger- 
mans would  one  day  attain.  The  sociableness 
which  Rahel  characterises  as  "a  conscious,  agree- 


216  Rahel  Varnhagen 

able  co-operation  for  the  enjoyment  and  repro- 
duction of  all  that  humanity  has  produced," 
that  is  what  she  calls  with  reason  "half  her 
life,"  while  empty  sociableness  was  her  horror. 

She  did  not  foresee,  however,  that  a  time  was 
approaching  with  such  a  passion  for  individual 
interests  that  nothing  was  left  over  for  the  interest 
in  each  other  that  gave  the  salons  their  ethical 
importance;  none  of  that  calm  that  gives  an 
aesthetic  perfection  to  speaking  and  listening.  No 
doubt  Rahel's  time,  that  of  the  great  Revolution, 
of  Napoleon,  of  the  Revolution  of  July,  was  even 
more  agitated;  no  doubt  the  spirit  of  the  age  was 
already  transformed  by  Napoleon's  spirit,  and  the 
unlovely  fight  for  power  was  soon  to  take  the 
place  of  the  beautiful  effort  for  culture.  But  as 
yet  the  only  effect  of  all  this  was  to  make  life  feel 
richer  and  fuller  of  possibilities.  And  a  Rahel 
might  hope  that  the  social  culture  she  was  creating 
was  the  glow  of  sunrise,  not,  as  it  proved  to  be,  of 
sunset. 

Rahel  is  a  living  refutation  of  the  oft-repeated 
delusion  that  really  good  tone,  the  genuine  art 
of  society,  consists  in  levelling  individuality  to  a 
certain  uniformity.  Rahel,  on  the  contrary,  could 


Social  Life  217 

say  that  "every  least  word  of  hers  was  connected 
with  her  personality."  And  it  is  very  characteris- 
tic of  Rahel  that  she  explains  her  popularity  at  a 
watering-place  as  due  simply  to  her  being  "true 
and  having  independent  views;  this  extends  even 
to  my  gestures.  I  am  the  only  person  here  who 
has  any  opinion."  She  ventured  to  contradict 
all  without  hurting  any  one,  since  they  all  felt 
that  the  matter  was  what  was  important  to  Rahel, 
not  the  impression  she  was  producing,  not  any 
pride  in  being  right.  And  although  of  course  Ra- 
hel did  not  give  others  credit  for  the  same  rich 
originality  as  that  from  which  her  own  keen-eyed 
observations,  witty  conceits,  and  profound  words 
of  wisdom  proceeded,  she  yet  recognised  that  all 
might  be  entertaining,  if  only  they  would  be  as 
frank  and  independent  as  herself.  She  could 
say  with  truth  that,  when  she  met  the  loftiest 
minds  on  their  stars,  she  had  come  there  by  her 
own  way. 

Rahel' s  conversation  was  of  another  kind  than 
that  of  the  Frenchwomen  whose  salons  have  be- 
come celebrated.  With  one  of  these,  Mme.  de 
Stael,  Rahel  came  in  contact  personally,  and  her 
judgment  of  Mme.  de  Stael  is  extremely  character- 
istic of  herself. 


2i 8  Rahel  Varnhagen 

"  Understanding  she  has  in  plenty,  but  no  listening 
soul;  it  is  never  calm  within  her,  never  as  if  she  were 
reflecting  in  solitude,  always  as  if  she  had  already  told 
many  people  of  it ....  It  never  becomes  music ; 
nor  does  she  keep  to  any  theme .  .  .  .  " 

And  Rahel  complains  that,  with  all  her  gifts, 
Mme.  de  Stael  has  no  "  calm,  innocent  sphere  of  the 
soul." 


It  was  just  such  a  sphere  of  the  soul  that  sur- 
rounded Rahel  and  that  made  the  circle  to  which 
she  gave  her  stamp  differ  both  from  the  society  of 
the  French  age  of  enlightenment  and  from  that  of 
the  German  age  of  hero-worship.  There  was  a 
great  silence  behind  Rahel's  words: 

"  There  is  a  play  of  colour  in  our  breast,  so  delicate 
that,  as  soon  as  we  try  to  express  it,  it  becomes  a 
lie .  .  .  .  This  shyness  restrains  me  from  speaking. 
A  feeling  is  beautiful,  so  long  as  it  has  not  become 
history ;  it  is  the  same  with  life  itself. " 

And  from  this  it  follows  that,  genuine  as  she 
was  in  social  intercourse,  she  yet  gave  her  best 
in  conversation  with  a  single  person.  She  felt 
that  "one  is  never  really  in  a  person's  company 
except  when  one  is  alone  with  him, "  and  she 
understood  how,  in  the  midst  of  a  social  gather- 


Social  Life  219 

ing,  to  find  an  opportunity  for  such  exclusive 
meetings. 

Apart  from  social  life  she  could  do  so  even 
more  often.  Bettina  speaks  of  their  lonely 
evening  hours,  when  Rahel  in  a  few  minutes 
could  impart  so  much,  through  that  "intercourse 
in  the  spirit"  which  was  peculiar  to  her.  Bet- 
tina also  insists  that  the  most  beautiful  feature 
of  Rahel' s  soul  was  her  "penetration  of  the 
individual."  Thereby  Rahel  became  so  "per- 
fectly kind,"  so  forbearing  where  others  con- 
demned. ...  "To  be  just  is  a  divine  art," 
Bettina  concludes,  after  having  thus  thrown 
light  upon  Rahel's  character  in  one  of  her  happy 
expressions:  "Rahel  could  still  taste  the  salti- 
ness in  what  others  had  thrown  away  as 
the  ashes  of  a  burnt-up  life."  Rahel  on  her 
side  enjoyed  these  conversations  with  Bettina, 
in  which  they  were  like  "two  beings  soar- 
ing over  the  earth,"  and  said  profound  things 
to  each  other  "about  human  beings,  not  about 
people." 

While  other  celebrated  conversationalists,  like 
Mme.  de  Stael  herself,  preferred  to  lead  up  to  sub- 
jects in  which  they  themselves  could  shine  most, 
Rahel  was  eager  to  avoid  those  in  which  her  hon- 


220  Rahel  Varnhagen 

esty  would  have  compelled  her  to  use  a  frankness 
unpleasant  to  some  people. 

Rahel  said :  "  I  spare  my  friends  my  censure.  You, 
when  necessary,  I  certainly  shall  not  spare.  My 
freedom  of  thought,  my  pride,  my  contempt  for  all 
fettering  opinions  are  only  for  the  wisest  and  most 
intimate  among  you;  but  to  every  mixed  company 
that  comes  to  my  house  I  am  bound  to  offer  friend- 
liness and  agreeableness — like  tea  and  ices.  This  is  no 
question  of  virtues,  but  of  becoming  forms  of  inter- 
course. .  .  .  Without  these  there  is  no  wit,  no 
frankness,  no  merry  letting-one's-self-go." 

G.  von  Brinckman,  from  whose  description  of  Ra- 
fael's social  art  the  last  and  several  of  the  following 
quotations  are  taken,  concludes  thus: 

"Only  thus  did  she,  the  unpretending  bourgeoise 
girl,  without  brilliant  connections,  without  the  uni- 
versal passport  of  beauty,  and  without  any  con- 
siderable fortune,  succeed  in  gradually  collecting 
about  her  a  numerous  social  circle,  which  was  be- 
yond comparison  the  most  delightful  and  gifted  in  the 
whole  of  Berlin.  A  circle,  to  be  admitted  to  which 
royal  princes,  foreign  diplomatists,  artists,  scholars, 
and  business  men  of  the  first  rank,  countesses  and 
actresses  were  all  equally  eager,  and  where  each  was 
worth  no  more,  but  at  the  same  time  no  less,  than 
the  impression  he  himself  produced  by  his  cultured 
personality." 

Rahel  laid  great  stress  on  human  intercourse  as 


Social  Life  221 

a  person's  best  means  of  culture,  even  surpassing 
books.  "Men  belong  together,"  she  said,  "in 
order  to  use  their  reason,  to  love,  and  to  exercise 
justice!"  No  doubt  in  the  last  case  Rahel  herself 
was  determined  by  her  personal  sympathies — who 
is  not?  But  she  possessed  the  most  important 
qualification  for  justice,  in  that  she  granted  to 
every  one  "each  and  every  quality"  and  that  she 
had  affection  for  "all  that  feels  or  seems  to  feel. " 
Above  all  she  had  the  art  which  she  calls  "a  diffi- 
cult, nay,  an  unlearnable  one:  quickness  of  sight!" 
She  congratulates  herself  on  her  "sure  eyes," 
which  went  right  through  accidentals  to  the  es- 
sential. She  admits,  however,  that  she  was  far  too 
credulous:  people  had  only  "to  weep  and  wish"  to 
make  her  believe  them  capable  of  the  nobility  they 
desired!  But  otherwise  Rahel  has  proved  her 
right  to  the  praise  she  gives  herself:  of  being  "an 
expert  in  the  knowledge  of  the  heart  and  of 
human  nature. "  If  she  found  herself  deceived,  if 
her  feeling  had  ^subsided,  she  did  not  conceal  it. 
She  did  not  expect  of  herself  that  everything  should 
be  everlasting.  But  she  was  not  one  of  those  who 
"have  no  memory  in  the  heart";  on  the  contrary, 
she  was  a  faithful  nature  and  possessed,  as  she  said 
herself,  "a  terrible  supply  of  heart  and  life.  "  She 


222  Rahel  Varnhagen 

was  thus  able  to  include  in  her  sympathies  the 
most  widely  different  persons  and  destinies.  To- 
wards her  real  friends  she  was  what  she  called 
herself  in  another  connection,  a  Don  Quixote. 
She  is  a  confirmation  of  E.  B.  Browning's  saying: 
That  knights  errant  are  more  common  among  wo- 
men than  among  men,  and  that  Cervantes,  if  he 
had  been  a  Shakespeare  as  well,  would  probably 
have  made  his  Don  a  Dona. 


These  are  characteristic  sayings  of  Rahel's:  "I 
cannot  resist  the  current  within  me.  What  I  appre- 
hend, I  embrace  in  the  whole  extent  it  has  for  me,  and 
in  my  whole  depth,  immediately,  very  rapidly.  Thus 
it  is  always  with  me,  that  is  why  I  have  so  soon 
finished  with  mediocre  things  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  never  with  better  things." 

"In  my  breast  men  press  and  die  as  on  a  battlefield, 
none  of  them  knows  of  the  others,  each  must  die  for 
himself.  ...  As  I  will  not  have  peace,  and  as 
there  are  men  like  the  sands  of  the  sea  in  number,  I 
must  bear  all,  as  the  earth  does." 

Rahel's  receptions  began  at  five  o'clock,  or  even 
earlier.  No  one  was  specially  invited,  but  all  felt 
that  they  were  welcome,  when  the  hostess  met 
them  with  quiet,  simple  cordiality.  Any  one  who 
tried  to  account  to  himself  for  the  strong  impres- 


Social  Life  223 

sion  she  at  once  produced,  soon  found  that  it  did 
not  depend  upon  beauty  but  upon  harmony.  She 
was  small,  with  an  unusually  good  figure,  deli- 
cately built  and  full,  with  a  quiet  grace  in  all  her 
movements.  Her  dress,  always  simple,  tasteful, 
and  individual,  was  in  agreement  with  her  whole 
appearance.  She  had  clear  eyes,  which  looked 
straight  before  them  and  "were  observant  and 
communicative  at  the  same  time";  her  delicate 
features  beamed  with  intelligence  and  would  have 
shone  with  courage,  if  sorrow  had  not  cast  its 
shadow  over  them.  A  smile,  generally  melancholy, 
sometimes  roguish,  played  lightly  over  the  fine 
mouth,  and  her  voice  sounded  as  sincere  and 
melodious  as  her  smile  would  have  led  one  to 
expect. 

Her  drawing-room  was  filled  by  degrees  with  the 
most  eminent  men  Berlin  could  show  in  the  liter- 
ary, scientific,  and  artistic  world,  and  with  women 
remarkable  for  beauty  and  charm.  But  Rahel 
would  seldom  have  more  than  two  such  women  on 
the  same  evening,  for  she  knew  that  a  greater  num- 
ber of  ladies  always  disturbed  the  connection  and 
productiveness  of  the  conversation.  Rahel,  how- 
ever, made  no  speeches  and,  indeed,  did  not  speak 
for  long  at  a  time;  her  form  of  communication 


224  Rahel  Varnhagen 

was  like  the  lightning.  She  only  dominated  the 
company  indirectly  and  never  tried  to  make  her- 
self its  centre.  She  brought  together  those  who 
might  have  something  to  say  to  each  other;  she 
listened  in  the  grateful  and  alert  way  that  is  the 
first  art  of  a  hostess;  she  was  often  silent,  when  she 
had  induced  others  to  talk;  she  united  the  threads 
of  conversation  and  sought  out  points  of  contact 
between  all  the  persons  of  different  nationality, 
age,  and  opinions  who  surrounded  her.1  And  of 
these  some  were  old  friends,  some  new  acquaint- 
ances introduced  by  those  friends,  or  celebrat- 
ed foreigners.  "All  parties  get  on  with  me," 
she  said;  "they  regard  me  as  a  question,  as  indeed 
I  am;  and  sometimes  as  an  honest  and  courageous 
answer."  She  tried  to  find  room  for  every  legi- 
timate claim;  her  kindness  sought  out  those  who 
were  overlooked  and  placed  them  where  they 
could  make  themselves  felt.  She  did  not  even 
neglect  her  own  insignificant  relatives,  but  tried 

1 "  Every  one  was  busy  in  a  natural  way  and  yet  no  one  was 
obtrusive,  they  seemed  just  as  glad  to  listen  as  to  speak .... 
With  what  freedom  and  grace  she  [Rahel]  knew  how  to  ani- 
mate, brighten,  and  warm  those  about  her.  It  was  impossible 
to  withstand  her  gaiety.  .  .  .  Her  sallies  were  wonderfully 
unexpected.  ...  I  have  heard  magnificent  sayings  of  hers, 
true  inspirations,  often  in  a  few  words,  which  flashed  through  the 
air  like  lightning  and  reached  the  inmost  heart."  (Brinckmann.) 


Social  Life  225 

to  bring  them  into  the  conversation,  so  that  they 
might  not  feel  that  they  were  outside  the  circle. 
She  seldom  failed  to  catch  "a  look,  a  pulse-beat 
of  genuine  humanity,"  and  with  the  highest  and 
lowest  alike  she  had  only  one  manner,  that  of 
kindness.  While  according  recognition  to  every 
one,  she  maintained  her  own  standpoint  with 
gentle  but  inflexible  energy.  In  the  atmosphere 
of  truth  that  surrounded  Rahel,  the  others  became 
sincere;  she  sought  so  perseveringly  and  faithfully 
for  every  one's  real  ego  that  she  ended  by  rinding 
it;  she  communicated  so  spontaneously  the  dis- 
coveries of  her  own  soul,  the  experiences  of  her  own 
heart,  that  every  one  else  produced  his  essential 
qualities  and  became  more  soulful,  purer,  and 
gentler  than  at  other  times.  In  all  this  there  ap- 
pears no  preconceived  design,  no  arrangement.  She 
has  no  personal  vanity  to  satisfy,  no  r61e  to  sustain, 
no  rivalry  to  defeat.  She  never  took  people  on 
their  petty  sides;  was  never  fussy  with  them;  did 
not  call  upon  them  to  be  amiable  or  to  show  them- 
selves off;  she  simply  by  her  own  presence  created 
a  warm  climate  in  which  they  all  unfolded  them- 
selves. It  was  one  of  Rahel's  articles  of  faith 
that  to  see  through  people's  masks  was  to  do  them 
a  good  deed,  and  this  good  deed  she  did  to  all. 


226  Rahel  Varnhagen 

No  one  posed  in  her  presence;  "I  kill  pedantry 
within  a  radius  of  thirty  miles,  I  am  such  a  poison- 
tree  for  it, "  she  said.  Nor  did  any  one  lay  down 
the  law.  Her  own  unconstrained  naturalness 
communicated  itself  to  her  circle ;  they  talked  sim- 
ply of  the  highest  questions,  passionately  of  what 
agitated  them,  and  gaily  of  what  amused  them. 
Rahel  called  herself  "savage"  in  the  sense  that 
she  hated  all  empty  forms  and  was  herself  so  free 
from  constraint  that  any  one  could  speak  to  her 
about  anything.  If  a  complication  arose,  she 
solved  the  difficulty  with  her  shrewd  judgment; 
she  removed  subjects  of  dispute  when  she  feared 
their  discussion  would  become  too  heated;  if  a 
serious  tone  prevailed  too  long  she  led  the  subject 
to  a  new  point  of  view,  and  her  tact  restored 
jesting  to  its  proper  limits,  if  it  had  overstepped 
them.  Moderation  and  mobility,  repose  and 
variety,  self-command  and  freedom  marked  the 
society  that  Rahel  led.  During  pauses  in  the 
conversation  there  was  music  on  the  piano,  which 
was  left  open  all  the  evening;  Rahel  herself  was  an 
accomplished  pianist,  besides  being  a  passionate 
lover  of  music.  Simple  refreshments  were  served 
and  the  company  broke  up  about  nine  o'clock, 
while  all  impressions  were  still  strong  and  no 


Social  Life  227 

weariness  had  made  the  spirit  of  the  party  flag. 
It  might  happen  that  one  or  another,  Prince 
Louis  Ferdinand,  for  instance,  stayed  on  to  im- 
provise on  the  piano,  for  which  he  showed  a  happy 
gift,  or  to  talk  more  intimately  than  had  been 
possible  in  the  larger  circle.  But  as  a  rule  the 
evening  closed  as  all  such  evenings  should,  at  its 
climax.  Every  one  felt  he  had  enjoyed  what 
Rahel  considered  social  life  ought  to  be:  "A  con- 
densation of  and  a  point  of  departure  for  every- 
thing moral. "  They  took  with  them  the  memory 
of  a  varied  exchange  of  ideas,  of  a  deep,  but  not 
pedantic  interest  in  art,  literature,  and  science,  of 
real  discussion  of  important  questions  of  the  day, 
of  well-weighed  judgments,  of  fertilising,  not 
negative  criticism.  And  the  men  in  particular, 
however  different  they  might  be  amongst  them- 
selves, from  a  Schleiermacher  to  a  Prince  Louis  Fer- 
dinand, "Prussia's  Alcibiades, "  all  felt  that  they 
had  seen  a  revelation  of  a  genuine  womanly  nature, 
or  in  other  words  of  that  which  to  them  was  the 
poetry  of  life.  That  is  what  men  long  for,  what 
men  seek.  And  when  they  do  not  find  this  direct- 
ness and  freshness  at  home,  nor  yet  in  society  of 
"good  tone, "  then  they  look  for  it  in  that  of  bad 
tone.  Natural  women,  who  had  a  strong  and  rich 


228  Rahel  Varnhagen 

nature  to  reveal,  were  always  the  best  inspiration 
of  great  poets,  and  no  literature  was  ever  fresh 
and  beautiful  during  periods  when  women  were 
not  natural,  not  direct,  not  themselves. 

There  we  have  the  final  reason  of  the  decline  of 
our  social  life.  That  women  have  acquired  a 
more  independent  outward  position  does  not 
necessarily  mean  that  they  are  more  themselves, 
richer  personalities.  Collectively,  feminine  in- 
dividuality has  developed  in  our  century  owing  to 
new  fields  of  work,  wider  opportunities  for  edu- 
cation, and  other  things,  but  these  new  means 
of  development  themselves  easily  induce  a  certain 
uniformity  therein.  They  must  all  occupy  them- 
selves with  the  same  tasks,  the  same  social  inter- 
ests, and  the  same  works  of  public  charity,  so  that 
even  those  who  are  not  overworked  in  making  their 
living  are  made  listless  and  preoccupied,  and  thus 
the  effect  upon  home  and  social  life  is  the  same. 
While  in  our  time  unusual  feminine  qualities  more 
easily  obtain  recognition,  there  is  probably  less 
originality  among  the  majority  to-day  than  fifty 
years  ago,  because  a  certain  average  level  of  cul- 
ture is  possessed  by  all,  produced  by  the  same 
school  system,  and  afterwards  maintained  by  the 


Social  Life  229 

same  books,  plays,  and  criticisms;  no  one  wants 
to  be  uncultivated  by  deviating  from  what  she 
believes  to  be  the  opinion  of  the  majority;  thus 
we  find  that  every  one  has  exactly  the  same  ideas 
and  opinions  and  expresses  them  in  exactly  the 
same  language !  No  one  will  purchase  her  freedom 
of  thought  and  action,  her  right  to  be  natural,  at 
the  price  of  being  called  pretentious,  affected,  or 
narrowly  egoistic,  as  is  the  usual  consequence  of 
dissociating  one's  self  from  one's  circle,  whether  in 
opinions  or  manners  or  habits  of  life.  A  woman 
therefore  arranges  her  house,  her  habits,  and  her 
dress  according  to  the  taste  of  the  day;  she  man- 
ages her  sympathy  and  her  charity,  her  social  feel- 
ing and  her  admiration  collectively;  the  personal 
element  is  ever  less,  while  the  public  contribution 
of  woman's  work  is  ever  becoming  greater. 

This  uniformity  in  women's  thought,  feeling,  and 
action  is  not,  however,  an  expression  of  the  sense  of 
social  duty  and  responsibility.  Woman  is  still  too 
apt  to  feel  as  an  individual  where  a  sense  of  soli- 
darity is  required,  and  collectively  where  she  ought 
to  be  individual.  The  community,  the  home,  and 
social  life  all  suffer  from  this  confusion  of  ideas. 
Until  women  are  penetrated  by  the  two  qualities 
which  Rahel  profoundly  calls  the  source  of  all 


230  Rahel  Varnhagen 

other  virtues,  "justice  for  others,  courage  for  our- 
selves," neither  the  life  of  the  community,  of  the 
home,  nor  of  sociality  will  approach  the  fulness  of 
meaning  which  they  might  attain. 

It  might  be  objected  that  Rahel  was  not  only 
exceptionally  gifted  but  enjoyed  an  exceptional 
position.  She  possessed,  for  instance,  a  small 
fortune,  which  gave  her  time  to  devote  herself 
personally  and  by  correspondence  to  social  life 
and  her  own  culture.  If  she  had  been  bound 
by  work,  she  could  not  have  been  the  same.  Both 
as  an  unmarried  and  as  a  married  woman  she 
occupied  a  position  in  society  which  did  not  in- 
volve any  burden  of  appearances  to  be  kept  up, 
but  gave  her  the  opportunity  of  forming  what- 
ever connections  she  pleased;  and,  having  grown 
up  during  the  period  of  the  Revolution,  she  had 
already  freed  herself  from  a  number  of  preju- 
dices. It  was  also  of  importance  that  she  had  no 
inclination  towards  public  production  to  claim 
her  mental  powers;  that  her  husband  shared  all 
her  interests,  while  nevertheless  their  life  together 
was  not  of  that  all-absorbing  kind  that  isolates  a 
couple  from  the  outside  world,  and  finally  that  she 
was  not  tied  by  motherhood.  She  thus  possessed 
in  an  unusual  degree  the  opportunity  of  imparting 


Social  Life  231 

intellectual  benefits  within  a  considerable  circle. 
But  that  she  did  this  depended  in  the  first  place 
on  the  fact  that  she  was,  after  the  death  of  Mme. 
de  Stael  and  before  the  appearance  of  George  Sand, 
what  Brinckmann  calls  her, "the  most  remarkable 
woman  of  her  time, "  its  most  distinguished 
feminine  personality  both  by  her  gifts  and  by  her 
originality.  Rahel's  most  comprehensive  signi- 
ficance lay  in  augmenting  the  productiveness, 
humanity,  and  culture  of  her  time  by  herself  every- 
where seeking  and  teaching  others  to  seek  the 
truth;  by  everywhere  encouraging  them  to  mani- 
fest their  own  culture;  by  imparting  to  others 
her  profound  way  of  looking  at  religion,  men  and 
women,  literature  and  art;  by  judging  everything 
according  to  its  intrinsic  value,  not  according  to 
its  deficiencies ;  by  everywhere  understanding,  be- 
cause she  loved,  and  giving  life,  because  she  believed 
in  liberty. 

But  this,  which  Rahel  accomplished  on  a  grand 
scale  in  the  social  and  public  life  of  her  time, 
could  be  promoted  in  some  degree  by  every  wo- 
man, each  in  her  own  circle,  if  she  would  learn  to 
understand  what  was  the  secret  of  Rahel's  power, 
what  the  age  is  unconsciously  or  consciously  thirst- 
ing for,  what  is  indispensable  to  the  health  of  art 


232  Rahel  Varnhagen 

as  well   as  of  life — a  full   development   and   a 
courageous  communication  of  one's  personality. 

It  was  for  about  ten  years  that  Rahel's  first 
salon  exercised  its  great  influence.  The  disasters 
of  1806  scattered  some  of  its  members  and  gave 
those  who  were  left  new  occupations  and  anxie- 
ties. During  the  years  when  Rahel  and  Varnhagen 
were  constantly  on  the  move,  Rahel  certainly  made 
her  ennobling  influence  felt  in  every  circle  to  which 
she  belonged,  but  to  none  could  she  give  her  tone 
until  she  was  once  more  able  to  open  her  salon  in 
her  own  home  in  Berlin. 

And  then  it  was  proved  again  what  a  "human 
magnet"  Rahel  was;  her  second  salon  was  "the 
garret,  but  on  an  enlarged  scale. "  And  as  Varn- 
hagen also  collected  people  about  him,  Rahel,  who 
on  her  return  found  herself  "surrounded  only 
by  graves,"  was  soon  once  more  in  the  centre 
of  a  circle  intellectually  alive,  in  which  some  of 
the  old  friends  and  many  new  ones  afforded  her  the 
joy  of  genuine  human  intercourse.  Through  the 
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy  family  she  came  in  close 
connection  with  the  musical  world.  Rahel,  who 
during  a  severe  illness  at  Prague  had  been  re- 
freshed by  Weber's  playing  in  the  room  next  to 


Social  Life  233 

hers,  and  to  whom  Beethoven,  without  being 
asked,  had  played  a  whole  evening,  became  every 
year  more  eager  for  music.  Her  own  musical 
education  had  consisted  of  Bach  and  Handel,  and 
all  her  life  she  was  most  deeply  affected  by  these 
two  masters.  She  compared  Bach  with  Kant,  by 
whom  she  was  otherwise  quite  uninfluenced,  and 
calls  Bach  "the  metaphysical,  God-fearing,  gifted 
with  the  highest  sagacity,"  while  Handel  brought 
her  "into  the  realm  of  the  higher  melancholy,  into 
an  anticipation  of  bliss. "  In  Mozart  she  saw  a 
"divine  being";  for  Spontini,  whom  she  person- 
ally knew,  she  had  a  high  respect.  But  Weber's 
operas  displeased  her  on  account  of  the  then 
fashionable  "Teutonism, "  which  in  them  found 
one  of  its  many  expressions,  disagreeable  to  Rahel. 
She  was  enthusiastic  about  Paganini,  and  on  the 
whole  nothing  of  importance  in  the  musical  world 
escaped  her. 

It  was,  however,  not  only  the  music,  but  the 
whole  spirit  of  the  Mendelssohn-Bartholdy  house 
that  she  loved,  for  "it  is  all  truth  there."  She 
often  sees  Amalia  von  Helwig,  as  they  live  near  one 
another,  and  Rahel  bestows  on  her  her  highest 
word  of  praise;  she  is  "real."  Besides  these, 
some  of  the  most  notable  visitors  of  the  Varn- 


234  Rahel  Varnhagen 

hagens'  salon  are  Schleiermacher,  Alexander  von 
Humboldt,  Hegel,  Cans,  Ranke,  Chamisso,  Fou- 
que,  Achim  von  Arnim,  Bettina,  Henrik  Stef- 
fens,  Heine,  and  Piickler-Muskau.  With  Uhland, 
Riickert,  and  others  Rahel  had  come  in  contact 
during  her  years  of  travel.  For  the  rest,  Rahel 
always  blends  Bohemia  with  the  aristocracy.  It 
was  her  joy  to  be  able  to  say  with  truth:  "All 
classes,  all  kinds  of  people  talk  to  me. "  And  as  all 
kinds  of  people  collected  about  the  Varnhagen 
couple,  their  drawing-room  became  a  power  that 
spread  culture  and  distributed  intellectual  values 
far  beyond  the  limits  of  Berlin.  This  power  of 
giving  the  tone  and  fixing  the  value  explains  the 
ill-natured  words  about  Rahel  which  escape  cer- 
tain authors,  Immermann,  for  example,  who  were 
strangers  to  her  circle.  The  impression  Rahel  pro- 
duced at  this  period  upon  every  one  who  personally 
came  near  her,  is  vividly  shown  in  some  remarks 
of  Grillparzer's. 

"Varnhagen  went  home  with  me.  As  we  passed  his 
house,  it  occurred  to  him  to  introduce  me  to  his  wife, 
the  afterwards  so  celebrated  Rahel,  of  whom  I  then 
knew  nothing.  I  had  been  strolling  about  all  day 
and  felt  tired  to  death,  and  was  therefore  heartily  glad 
when  we  were  told  at  the  door  that  Frau  Varnhagen 


Social  Life  235 

was  not  at  home.  But  as  we  came  down  the  stairs,  she 
met  us,  and  I  submitted  to  my  fate.  But  now  the 
lady, — elderly,  perhaps  never  handsome,  shrivelled  by 
illness,  reminding  one  rather  of  a  fairy,  not  to  say  a 
witch, — began  to  talk,  and  I  was  altogether  enchanted. 
My  weariness  disappeared,  or  perhaps,  rather,  gave 
way  to  intoxication.  She  talked  and  talked  till 
nearly  midnight,  and  I  don't  know  whether  they 
turned  me  out  or  whether  I  went  away  of  my  own 
accord.  Never  in  my  life  have  I  heard  any  one  talk 
more  interestingly  or  better.  Unfortunately  it  was 
towards  the  end  of  my  stay,  and  I  was  not  able  to 
repeat  the  visit. " 

Grillparzer  left  other  similar  observations  about 
Rahel,  in  one  of  which,  for  instance,  he  says  that 
she  was  the  only  woman  to  whom  he  would  have 
wished  to  be  married. 

Heine  calls  Rahel  "the  most  inspired  woman 
in  the  universe";  he  describes  his  acquaintance 
with  her  as  the  beginning  of  a  new  epoch  in  his 
life,  her  home  as  his  fatherland,  and  herself  as  his 
"patron  saint."  He  even  declares  that  he  ought 
to  wear  a  dog-collar  inscribed:  I  belong  to  Frau 
Varnhagen!  When  absent  from  her  he  had  only  to 
pronounce  her  name  to  be  "cheerful  and  in  a 
pleasant  mood. "  Heine  also  characterises  Rahel' s 
style  admirably,  when  he  compares  her  with 
Borne — whom  Rahel  also  came  to  know  and  appre- 


236  Rahel  Varnhagen 

ciate — and  calls  them  "the  Bacchantes  of  thought, 
reeling  in  holy  intoxication  after  the  god. " 

In  general,  nearly  all  the  authors  of  "Young 
Germany"  declare  that  they  received  more  stimu- 
lation and  impulse  from  Rahel  than  from  any  other 
woman.  It  is  after  Varnhagen's  publication  of  her 
letters — that  is,  after  Rand's  death — that  this  influ- 
ence becomes  so  powerful.  For  during  her  lifetime 
she  had  had  little  or  no  contact  with  any  of  them, 
except  Heine.  Laube,  who,  however,  was  among 
her  acquaintances,  calls  her  letters  the  most  open- 
hearted  book  in  German  literature  and  herself 
"Rahel  the  truthful."  T.  Mundt  finds  in  these 
letters  "a  movement  of  elemental  force  and  a 
development  of  original  personality,"  and  calls 
Rahel  "the  sympathetic  nerve  of  the  time";  in  her 
"infinitely  emotional  personality"  are  combined 
"the  anxious  pangs  of  a  period  of  transition" 
with  "prophetic  insight  into  the  future."  Gutz- 
kow  admired  in  Rahel,  amongst  others  things, 
and  as  a  contrast  to  the  usual  feminine  culture, 
her  "higher  receptivity."  Gustav  Kuhne  not  only 
gave  an  admirable  characterisation  of  Rahel,  but 
also  a  rapid  picture  of  her  outward  appearance  dur- 
ing the  later  years  of  her  life.  From  the  former 
this  telling  judgment  may  be  quoted:  that  Rahel 


Social  Life  237 

constituted  in  her  own  person  "the  emancipation 
of  the  thinking  woman, "  since  she  revealed  what 
woman  can  achieve  as  a  thinking  being  through 
"solitary  detachment  and  superior  intellectual 
force, "  but  that  this  thinker- woman  owned  at  the 
same  time  the  most  womanly  soul,  a  soul  full  of 
sympathetic  tenderness,  through  which  she  was 
before  all  things,  always  and  everywhere  a  "com- 
forter of  the  heart. " 

Kuhne  retained  a  striking  impression  of  the  only 
occasion  on  which  he  saw  Rahel,  the  figure  clad 
in  black,  the  pale  face,  the  small,  white  hands 
clasped  together;  but  above  all  her  "dark,  deep 
eyes"  remained  in  his  memory.  For  a  long  time 
it  seemed  to  him  that  these  eyes  followed  him, 
with  their  manly,  intrepid  light ;  he  felt  that  there 
was  not  only  a  searching,  but  a  "dissolving  power 
in  the  persistent  gaze  of  her  meditative  eyes."1 
Even  in  1830  a  stranger,  who  saw  Rahel  for  the 
first  time,  lays  ^stress  on  the  wonderful  freshness 
of  her  clear,  delicate  countenance,  and  on  the  firm, 
easy  bearing  which  her  short  and,  at  that  time, 
somewhat  stout  figure  maintained.  Such  was 

1  Kleist  too  seems  to  have  felt  the  power  of  Rahel's  look,  as  he 
says  that  her  words  were  as  expressive  as  her  eyes. 


238  Rahel  Varnhagen 

the  external  impression  Rahel  communicated  in 
her  later  years  to  those  who  gathered  round  her, 
still  charmed  by  what  Varnhagen  calls  her  "talent 
for  life, "  by  which  she  "gave  beauty  and  harmony 
both  to  social  life  and  to  solitude. " 

The  stranger  in  question  has  described  a  social 
evening  at  the  Varnhagens'  in  March,  1830.  He 
tells  us  how,  as  the  first  arrival,  he  witnessed 
Rahel's  motherly  care  for  her  little  Elise,  and  after- 
wards saw  her  attend  to  the  comfort  of  a  pair  of 
aged  guests  with  the  same  solicitude.  The  con- 
versation first  touched  upon  a  question  of  religious 
orthodoxy  and  then  passed  to  music,  one  of  the 
foreign  visitors  taking  up  the  cudgels  on  behalf  of 
Rossini ;  a  celebrated  singer  went  to  the  piano  and 
gave  songs  by  Schubert  and  Beethoven,  to  which 
Rahel  listened  with  tears  in  her  eyes  and  a  happy 
smile.  When  the  music  ceased,  some  one  men- 
tioned a  political  piece  of  news,  and  as  politics  were 
just  then  a  burning  topic,  a  lively  debate  ensued, 
in  which  Rahel  interjected  a  few  remarks.  Thus 
she  succeeded  in  preventing  the  dispute  from 
becoming  heated;  she  purified  the  air  with  "rapid 
flashes  of  light  humour,"  which  always  occa- 
sioned a  little  "shock  of  surprise  and  pleasure," 
whereby  the  uncomfortable  feeling  was  relieved. 


Social  Life  239 

The  conversation  then  turned  upon  Henriette 
Sonntag,  who  had  recently  returned  to  Berlin, 
and  her  musical  coquetry  was  attacked.  But 
Rahel  defended  her  as  an  expression  of  the  time. 
Henriette  Sonntag  was  a  product  of  the  pre- 
vailing conditions,  from  which  greatness  and  lofti- 
ness had  disappeared,  while  "moderation  and 
agreeableness "  had  come  in  their  place.  It  was 
E.  Cans  that  Rahel  was  addressing,  and  he  was  so 
struck  by  the  truth  of  Rahel's  idea  that  he  asked 
leave  to  work  it  out  in  a  musical  review,  which 
with  Rahel's  permission,  he  afterwards  did.  Then 
Alexander  von  Humboldt  arrived  from  the  Court 
and  soon  every  one  was  listening  to  him,  as  he 
described  the  different  kinds  of  piety  he  had 
observed  in  the  course  of  his  travels  and  classified 
them  according  to  their  types,  as  a  botanist  classi- 
fies his  plants.  On  his  departure  the  conversation 
reverted  to  French  politics,  and  among  other 
observations  Rahel  uttered  the  far-seeing  words, 
that  the  republic  jis  in  the  blood  of  every  French- 
man and  that  France  would  be  a  republic  sooner 
or  later.  To  the  French  people,  "my  ancestral 
people"  Rahel  called  them,  a  republic  is  inevi- 
table; if  they  should  fail  now,  they  will  make  one 
attempt  after  another  till  they  succeed.  For 


240  Rahel  Varnhagen 

every  Frenchman  has  in  him  a  certain  self-glory 
and  will  submit  to  an  abstraction  rather  than  to  a 
person. 

While  Rahel  was  talking  in  this  spirit  the  visitor 
noticed  how  she,  who  had  at  first  "appeared  so 
gentle  and  modest,"  became  profoundly  serious, 
her  eyes  firm,  her  expression  almost  defiantly 
convinced  of  the  truth  of  her  prophecy,  which 
concluded  thus :  that,  even  if  interludes  were  possi- 
ble, the  great  events  of  the  time  would  nevertheless 
advance  over  these  fortuitous  circumstances, 
"making  them  into  the  dust  of  its  way."  These 
last  words,  characteristic  of  Rafael's  way  of  ex- 
pressing herself,  were  spoken  so  earnestly  that  the 
spirit  of  them  took  hold  of  everyone,  though  the 
majority  doubted  the  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy. 
Then  Bettina  von  Arnim  arrived,  and  into  "her 
impetuous  flood  of  wit  and  thought"  Rahel  only 
interjected  a  few  rapid  observations  and  soon  was 
content  to  listen,  charmed  like  the  rest,  to  this 
winged,  fascinating,  inspired  art  of  talking,  which 
was  the  final  impression  of  the  evening. 

Even  in  my  short  summary  this  description 
may  give  a  living  picture  of  what  those  who  had 
spent  an  evening  at  Rafael's  carried  away  with 
them,  and  of  Rafael's  own  power  of  setting  ideas 


Social  Life  241 

in   motion,   of  enlarging  points  of  view  or  ex- 
tending the  horizon. 

It  is  very  significant  that  Rahel,  who  sees  in 
Wilhelm  von  Humboldt  a  desire  to  transform 
everything  about  him  into  "the  property  of  his 
understanding"  and  "to  leave  as  little  as  possible 
on  earth  with  which  he  had  not  come  in  contact, " 
should  complain  that  this  desire  was  not  combined 
with  a  more  profound  relation  to  the  matter  at 
issue.  He  would  defend  to-day  what  he  attacked 
to-morrow,  he  strewed  sophisms  and  paradoxes 
around  him  during  discussions  in  which  he  was 
interested  not  in  the  question  itself  but  in  the  fire 
of  words  and  conflict.  Rahel  thought  less  of  the 
brilliant  "intellectual  freedom"  with  which  he 
accomplished  this,  when  she  found  that  he  did 
not  use  this  freedom  in  the  cause  of  intellectual 
liberation.  As  these  features,  which  thus  cooled 
Rahel  towards  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt,  were 
just  the  ones  that  most  commonly  marked  the 
Jewish  intelligence,  it  is  noteworthy  that  Rahel 
so  clearly  perceived  the  thinness  of  such  talents, 
which  she  well  characterised  in  the  following  re- 
mark on  orie  of  Humboldt's  political  pamphlets: 
"The  soup  is  excellent,  but  it  does  not  give  us  any 
joint. " 

16 


242  Rahel  Varnhagen 

Other  women,  both  before  and  after  Rahel, 
have  exercised  a  social  influence  of  the  same  ten- 
dency as  hers.  I  was  not  fortunate  enough  to  know 
Malwida  von  Meysenburg  before  that  late  period 
of  her  life  when  she  could  see  only  a  few  visitors 
at  a  time.  But  in  spite  of  this  I  received  an  im- 
pression of  what  she  must  have  been  to  the  select 
cosmopolitan  circle  that  gathered  in  her  drawing- 
room  in  Rome. 

Personally  I  never  saw  George  Eliot.  But 
Sonia  Kovalevsky  described  her  receptions  to  me 
as  intellectual  solemnities,  in  which  the  hostess 
herself,  by  the  quiet  gentleness  of  her  presence, 
her  voice,  and  her  smile,  made  the  atmosphere 
warm  and  peaceful,  even  during  lively  exchanges 
of  opinion.  George  Eliot  herself  preferred  to  listen, 
and  it  was  only  some  profound  subject  that  induced 
her  to  take  a  more  active  part  in  the  conversa- 
tion. Sonia  Kovalevsky  herself  was  a  brilliant 
conversationalist,  but  had  no  talent  for  hold- 
ing a  circle  together.  Many  other  names  of  wo- 
men, more  or  less  eminent,  might  be  mentioned  in 
this  connection,  especially  of  French  women. 
But  on  the  whole  it  seems  incontestable  that  in 
Rahel  the  influence  of  the  European  woman  in 
and  through  social  life  reached  a  height  it  has  not 


Social  Life  243 

attained  since.  Those  women  who  have  since 
formed  famous  salons  have  either  had  a  name  of 
their  own  in  literature  or  art,  or  have  acquired 
an  influential  position  through  a  husband  in  the 
political  or  aristocratic  or  intellectual  world.  But 
no  one  has  attained  this  position,  as  Rahel  did, 
exclusively  by  the  power  of  her  own  personality, 
nor  exercised  it  exclusively  through  her  gift  of 
intercourse  in  the  finest  and  greatest  meaning  of 
the  term. 

In  this  relation  some  acute  opinions  of  Rahel 
were  expressed  by  a  Frenchman,  the  Count  de 
Custine,  who  met  Rahel  at  Frankfort  a  few  years 
after  her  marriage.  He  says  that  he  was  "irre- 
vocably captivated,  without  being  in  love,"  a 
condition  which  he  calls  "the  most  perfect  of  all 
relations  between  human  beings. "  To  arrive  at  it, 
he  thinks,  is  a  difficult  problem,  but  Rahel  solved 
it  by  her  frankness,  her  truth,  and  the  magic  of 
her  mind.  She  gave  life,  Custine  says,  "to  a 
large  circle  as  .well  as  to  a  lHe-a-tele\  her  gift  was 
genius  in  the  service  of  society  and  sociality." 
Rahel,  he  continues,  never  found  it  beneath  her 
dignity  to  occupy  herself  with  everyday  concerns, 
while  at  the  same  time  none  of  life's  important 
affairs  lay  beyond  her  vision.  Whatever  she  took 


244  Rahel  Varnhagen 

up,  she  did  thoroughly;  she  never  tried  to  play  a 
part,  never  calculated  an  effect,  nor  required  to  do 
so.  For  her  delicate  sense  of  tact  always  guided 
her  aright  in  social  life,  as  did  her  sense  of  beauty 
in  nature  and  art.  Rahel  would  only  have  friends. 
She  did  not  talk  to  excite  admiration  but  to  reveal 
her  inner  nature,  and  this  was  so  rich  that  she  had 
no  need  of  external  activity.  Life  itself  was  to  her 
a  continual  work.  She  lived  and  talked  with  her 
books  as  with  living  creatures.  She  put  soul  into 
everything,  and  in  her  world  everything  had  its 
use;  she  had  "the  mind  of  a  philosopher  and  the 
heart  of  an  apostle, "  and  this  in  spite  of  her  being 
"child  and  woman,  as  much  as  any  one  can  be." 
"She  felt  as  an  artist,"  and  she  "reached  the 
highest  truths  by  the  two  paths  which  usually 
exclude  each  other:  by  feeling  and  reflection,  by 
divinatory  examination,  by  intuitive  insight. " 

Rahel's  significance  as  a  force  of  culture  may 
be  best  summed  up  in  Custine's  words:  "In  a 
more  highly  organised  society  Rahel  would  have 
been  to  the  nations  what  she  was  here  to  a  little 
circle  of  intimate  friends:  a  light  to  their  minds, 
a  leader  of  souls." 

Unfortunately  our  time  has  not  yet  arrived  at 
this  higher  organisation;  on  the  contrary,  it  is 


Social  Life  245 

probable  that  Rahel  is  now  less  appreciated  than 
by  her  own  age.  For,  while  culture  was  the 
highest  aim  of  that  time,  we  have  now  almost  lost 
the  idea  of  what  culture  meant  to  the  mind  of  a 
Goethe  or  a  Rahel. 


CHAPTER  VII 

GOETHE 

EVERYONE  knows  that,  as  is  always  the 
case  with  what  is  great  and  new,  his  contem- 
poraries were  slow  to  appreciate  Goethe.  That 
he  was  not  understood  by  the  great  public,  who 
put  Kotzebue  far  above  him  as  a  dramatist,  is 
not  surprising.  But  that  a  Lessing,  for  instance, 
could  say  of  Goethe  that  he  really  attracted 
attention  by  the  mad  things  in  his  Werther,  and 
that  if  Goethe  became  sane  there  would  not  be 
much  left  of  him,  is  significant,  as  is  the  fact  that 
the  first  collection  of  his  works  sold  so  badly 
that  he  had  to  look  for  another  publisher  for  the 
second.  That  Moses  Mendelssohn  understood 
Goethe  as  little  as  did  Lessing,  that  Klopstock 
remained  cool,  that  all  the  old  school  was  hostile 
to  him,  and  that  it  was  only  the  Romantic  School 
that  began  to  speak  of  him  as  a  prince  of  poets — 
all  this  must  be  remembered.  For  otherwise  we 

246 


Goethe  247 

shall  not  realise  what  intellectual  independence 
is  implied  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century 
by  a  young  woman  like  Rahel  drawing  a  bright 
halo  about  Goethe's  name  simply  by  the  way  she 
pronounced  it:  like  something  which  ought  not 
to  be  mentioned  on  the  same  day  as  anything 
else ! 

That  kind  of  literary  historians,  to  whom  the 
spirit  of  the  thing  is  a  hidden  mystery,  are  always 
hunting  for  dates.  To  them  it  would  be  an  im- 
portant matter  to  find  out,  for  instance,  who  it 
was  that  first  induced  Rahel  to  read  Goethe  ( !) — 
as  though  people  could  not  find  the  sun  for  them- 
selves— or  to  establish  whether  it  was  Rahel  or 
some  other  woman  of  literary  influence  who  first 
directed  attention  to  Goethe's  significance,  and 
so  on. 

Just  because  Rahel  had  such  a  deep  reverence 
for  Goethe  it  may  be  assumed  that  it  was  not  she 
among  the  influential  ladies  of  Berlin  who  first 
began  to  talk  ..about  him,  to  read  his  works  aloud, 
and  to  clothe  herself  in  admiration  for  him. 

Thus,  for  example,  Rahel  tells  how  she  remained 
dumb  even  with  a  genuine  admirer  of  Goethe  like 
Bettina;  how  when  once  in  the  autumn  sunlight  at 
Montbijou  Bettina  talked  "beautifully  and  ardently" 


248  Rahel  Varnhagen 

about  Goethe,  "I  behaved  as  if  I  did  not  know  him 
at  all.     So  it  was  often  with  me." 


That  Rahel,  like  other  live  young  people  of 
her  time,  herself  discovered  Goethe,  lived  in  him 
and  on  him,  and  gave  him  all  her  soul,  before  any 
one  asked  for  Rahel' s  opinion,  clearly  appears 
from  her  own  statements. 

She  says  of  her  garret  in  her  father's  house  (the 
italics  are  mine  in  the  first  three  instances):  "There 
is  my  mausoleum.  There  I  have  lived,  loved,  suffered, 
rebelled,  learned  to  know  Goethe.  Grew  up  with  him, 
idolised  him  boundlessly!  There  I  lay  awake  and 
suffered  through  many,  many  nights,  and  looked  at  the 
heavens,  the  stars,  and  the  world  with  a  kind  of  hope ; 
or  at  least  with  violent  desires.  I  was  innocent."  .  .  . 

"A  new  volume  of  Goethe  was  a  festival  with  me;  a 
lovely,  glorious,  beloved,  honoured  guest,  who  opened 
new  gates  for  me  to  a  new,  unknown,  bright  life. 
Throughout  my  life  the  poet  has  accompanied  me 
unfailingly. 

"I  went  into  partnership  with  his  wealth;  he  was 
always  my  only,  surest  friend,  my  safeguard  against 
being  terrified  by  spectres,  my  superior  master,  my 
most  moving  friend,  of  whom  I  knew  what  hells  he  had 
known! — in  short,  with  him  I  grew  up,  and  after  a 
thousand  separations  I  have  always  found  him  again. 
And,  as  I  am  no  poet,  I  can  never  say  what  he  has  been 
tome."  .  .  . 

"When  I  think  of  him,  tears  come  into  my  eyes: 


Goethe  249 

every  one  else  I  love  with  my  strength  alone;  he  has 
taught  me  to  love  with  his.  And  I  do  not  know  how 
much  I  have  yet  to  love.  How  often  have  I  thought 
already:  your  nature  cannot  endure  more;  and  then 
my  nature  changed.  My  poet!11 

Thus  Rahel  lived  in  Goethe  long  before  she 
began  to  talk  about  him.  But  when  she  did  so, 
as  in  her  first  salon,  she  had  words  of  admiration, 
as  one  of  her  hearers  tells  us,  which  surpassed  all 
he  had  heard  up  to  that  time. 

And  that  is  the  important  point,  not  whether 
it  was  Rahel,  as  Varnhagen  thinks,  or  the 
Schlegels,  who  began  to  spread  the  cult  of 
Goethe — not  who  first  called  Goethe  "lord  and 
master, "  but  who  felt  most  deeply  that  he  was  so. 
And  the  most  important  point  of  all  is  that  Rahel's 
enthusiasm  was  kindled  through  her  own  profound 
understanding  of  Goethe;  that,  independently 
of  all  currents  of  fashion  for  or  against  him,  he 
remained  the  centre  of  her  intellectual  existence; 
that  her  feeling  .for  him  was  a  complete  confirma- 
tion of  her  own  words:  "No  enthusiasm  must 
blow  from  without,  it  must  blaze  up  from  the  holy 
altar  of  our  own  spirit." 

Thus  Rahel  taught  her  contemporaries  to  live 
in  the  spirit  on  and  through  Goethe ;  taught  them 


250  Rahel  Varnhagen 

that  he  was  inexhaustible  as  nature  herself;  that 
"from  other  great  minds  we  receive  truths,  but 
from  him  the  truth." 

In  a  word,  Rahel  perceived,  as  none  of  her 
contemporaries,  Goethe's  right  place  in  the 
history  of  the  development  of  the  human  mind, 
and  gave  it  him  in  these  words:  "The  nations 
always  murmur  against  their  great  men:  Moses, 
Socrates,  Goethe,  need  I  recall  Christ?"  And  she 
was  capable  of  seeing  that  which  we  now,  a 
hundred  years  later,  are  beginning  to  see,  when 
the  distance  of  time  has  set  its  golden  back- 
ground behind  Goethe's  figure  and  when  he  has 
been  endlessly  commented  on  and  interpreted. 
Through  her  loving  understanding,  her  religious 
reverence,  she  reached  a  point  in  her  worship  of 
Goethe  which  the  whole  of  humanity  will  not 
reach  for  a  few  centuries  yet. 

The  most  remarkable  thing  of  all  is  that  Rahel 
penetrated  to  the  depths  of  Goethe's  mind  without 
knowing  any  more  of  him  than  his  then  published 
works.  All  the  riches  that  have  since  been 
brought  to  light,  above  all  his  wonderful  letters, 
were  unknown  to  her.  But  in  spite  of  this  she 
was  able  to  pierce  through  all  the  false  notions 
that  were  formed  about  Goethe  the  courtier  and 


Goethe  251 

official,  the  dignities  his  contemporaries  most 
admired  in  Goethe  and  thus  believed  to  be  his 
own  chief  preoccupation. 

In  this  connection  I  have  heard  a  significant 
utterance  of  Ulrike  von  Levetzow:  that,  if  she  had 
understood  that  he  was  Goethe,  she  would  perhaps, 
from  flattered  pride,  have  married  him;  but,  like  those 
around  her,  she  saw  in  him  the  distinguished  old 
Geheimrat,  who  talked  about  stars  and  stones  and 
flowers,  while  she  found  all  this  tedious  and  listened 
so  badly  that  Goethe  used  to  say:  "Is  my  dear  child 
not  listening  again  ?' '  And  when  he  gave  her  his  works 
with  notes  made  specially  for  her,  she  put  them  on  one 
side  and,  on  Goethe's  asking  her  one  day:  "Has  my 
dear  child  been  dipping  into  me?  was  obliged  to  con- 
fess with  shame  that  she  had  not ! ' ' 

So  little  idea  had  a  young  girl  "of  good  family," 
about  1820,  of  what  Goethe  was,  when  she  was  the 
object  of  his  love !  If  we  compare  her  with  Rahel  in 
her  garret  nearly  forty  years  earlier,  the  maturity  of 
Rahel's  understanding  of  Goethe  will  be  seen  for  the 
first  time  in  its  true  light. 

Rahel  lives  in,  -and  like  every  child  of  her  time 
receives  impressions  from,  the  age  of  enlighten- 
ment, the  period  of  the  Revolution,  the  romantic 
age,  Young  Germany,  and  Saint-Simonism.  But 
there  is  not  one  of  these  phases  in  which  Goethe 
does  not  exercise  an  influence  incomparable  with 


252  Rahel  Varnhagen 

all  others  on  Rahel's  view  of  life,  even  when  she 
stands  nearer  to  certain  of  these  manifestations 
of  the  time  than  he  does;  a  difference  in  attitude 
which  depended  partly  on  the  disparity  of  their 
ages,  partly  on  that  of  their  characters.  But 
Rahel  could  combine  her  love  of  Goethe  with  her 
sympathy  for  movements  which  to  a  more  super- 
ficial view  would  appear  irreconcilable  with  her 
comprehension  of  him.  She  could  do  this  be- 
cause she  had  penetrated  so  deeply  into  Goethe 
that  she  understood  that  he  was  not  against  the 
movements  of  the  time,  the  idea  of  national 
unity,  for  instance,  and  the  demand  for  social 
reforms,  but  that  he  looked  at  them  from  a 
higher  point  of  view  than  public  opinion. 

It  was  the  same  with  Goethe's  view  of  life. 
While  the  Romantic  School,  in  its  enthusiasm  for 
"faith,"  which  Rahel  found  lacking  in  calmness, 
chasteness,  devotion,  and  reverence  and  therefore 
regarded  as  an  aesthetic  pastime,  ignores  Goethe's 
piety,  Rahel  has  the  most  intimate  comprehension 
of  it.  In  connection  with  Spinoza,  whom  she 
loves  because  he  has  "the  fine  character  of  the 
thinker,  that  of  being  honest,  impersonal,  gentle, 
calm, "  she  enters  into  Faust's  answer  to  Gretchen's 
question  about  his  religion.  Rahel  calls  this 


Goethe  253 

answer  "the  most  beautiful  prayer."  "And 
how  many  prayers,"  she  continues,  "has  not 
that  soul  poured  out,  that  gives  this  answer!" 

I  divide  men  and  women  into  three  groups: 
those  who  are  "Goethereif,"1  those  who  are  not 
yet  so,  and  those  who  will  never  be  so.  Rahel 
may  be  called  Goethe-ripe  in  the  fullest  sense; 
in  that  she  not  only  understood  Goethe  most 
profoundly,  but  lived  wholly  in  his  spirit — 
a  thing  which  cannot  be  said  of  his  romantic 
admirers,  male  and  female.  Her  wisdom  of  life, 
as  concentrated  in  the  words,  "to  feel  the  present 
moment  and  to  be  able  to  seize  it,  that  is  the  art 
of  life, "  is  like  drops  of  honey  from  Goethe's  hive. 
Rahel  advised  a  person  in  sorrow  to  read  Wilhelm 
Meister,  "as  others  read  the  Bible."  And  just 
because  Rahel  herself  read  Goethe  so,  she  found 
more  in  him  than  any  one  else  did.  How  Goethe 
had  penetrated  her  being  is  shown  in  the  way  she 
quotes  him:  in  every  mood — sorrow,  or  joy — he  is 
her  master,  guide,  and  oracle.  She  reads  him 
when  young  and  on  her  deathbed;  indeed,  the 

1  This  expression  has  been  ascribed  to  Auerbach.  But,  as 
Frau  Professor  Furtwaengler  informed  me,  it  originated  with  her 
mother,  Frau  Dorn,  who  made  use  of  it  in  Auerbach's  presence. 
He  was  so  delighted  with  the  word  that  he  asked  to  be  allowed  to 
adopt  it,  and  thus  it  passed  into  general  use. 


254  Rahel  Varnhagen 

last  words  she  read  and  wrote  were  by  and  about 
him;  she  ranks  people  according  to  their  under- 
standing of  Goethe,  and  she  regards  the  further- 
ing of  this  understanding  as  the  task  of  her 
life. 

When  Frau  von  Wolzogen  told  Rahel  that 
some  of  her  sayings  about  Goethe  had  done  him 
a  great  deal  of  good,  accustomed  as  he  was  to 
misunderstanding,  Rahel  felt  deeply  grateful 
that  she  had  been  able  to  bring  happiness  to  him, 
that  "king  of  the  Germans,  of  these  blind  and 
unhappy  people  who  will  awake  a  century  after 
his  death."  At  the  same  time  Rahel  utters  the 
moving  words,  which,  spoken  by  her,  one  feels  to 
be  true:  that,  if  she  knew  any  one  who  could  love, 
honour,  admire,  worship  him  more  than  herself, 
understand  him  better,  interpret  more  correctly 
"every  word,  every  syllable,  every  sigh,"  who 
was  always  "in  agreement  and  satisfied  with  him" 
in  the  same  degree  as  herself,  then  she,  Rahel, 
would  remain  for  ever  unknown  to  Goethe  and 
would  "lead  this  other  one  to  him."  Yes,  she 
declares,  if  there  was  an  empress  "who  was  born 
to  worship  him,  I  would  almost  give  her  my  heart 
and  my  insight — would  certainly  often  lend 
them!  .  ." 


Goethe  255 

"My  existence  has  come  to  his  knowledge :  that  this 
man  should  know  what  it  was  to  be  worshipped, 
acknowledged,  studied,  grasped,  and  loved  with  dis- 
cerning hearts  by  his  contemporaries  was  the  height 
of  all  my  earthly  desires  and  tasks.  This  perfected 
human  being,  this  representative,  who  includes  all 
others  in  himself  and  has  such  power  to  show  them  to 
us.  This  priest,  this  true  messenger!  He  now  says 
with  satisfaction  that  he  is  understood — that  is,  loved, 
loved  with  a  love  that  only  he  could  evoke.  And 
this  /have  given  him." 

Rahel  has  a  right  to  this  proud  certainty.  It  is 
worthy  of  note  that  Emerson  uses  the  expression 
"  representative  men  "  in  just  the  same  sense  as  Rahel 
here  uses  it  of  Goethe.  But  while  Emerson  makes 
Goethe  representative  in  a  restricted  sense,  Rahel 
does  so  in  an  unrestricted,  and  thus  shows  that  her 
insight  was  deeper  than  Emerson's. 

It  was  an  unspeakable  joy  to  Rahel  when  she 
found  (through  Wahrheit  und  Dichtung)  how  fully 
she  had  understood  Goethe  and  his  work.  For 
she  had  seen  by  his  writings  that  his  life  must 
have  been  full  of  "great  afflictions,"  and  to  the 
ridiculous  myth  of  the  cold  and  clear  Olympian 
Goethe  Rahel  did  not  contribute  a  syllable. 

One  of  Rahel's  deepest  sayings  of  Goethe  is 
that  in  Wilhelm  Meister  he  had  created  a  second 
Don  Quixote;  that  Goethe  and  Cervantes,  by 
seeing  with  pure  eyes,  became  the  vindicators  of 


256  Rahel  Varnhagen 

the  human  race.  Through  all  "follies  and  errors" 
they  show  the  "true  figure  and  deepest  soul"  of 
their  heroes:  the  purest,  noblest,  most  honest 
soul,  while  the  world  calls  them  both  fools. 

Rahel's  friendship  for  a  person  was  measured 
by  that  person's  love  of  Goethe.  And,  if  one  who 
was  sympathetic  to  her  did  not  already  do  so, 
Rahel  had  no  more  lively  wish  than  that  he  should 
learn  to  know  and  admire  Goethe. 

If  an  admirer  of  Goethe  wished  to  make  Rahel's 
acquaintance,  she  sent  him  a  message  that  he 
was  to  treat  her  as  an  old  friend,  for  Goethe  was 
"the  centre  of  union  of  all  that  can  and  will  be 
called  by  the  name  of  man. "  When  Prince  Louis 
Ferdinand  had  met  Goethe  at  Weimar  he  wrote 
to  Rahel  that  he  knew  he  was  now  "worth  three 
thousand  thalers  more  in  her  eyes."  And  Rahel 
on  her  side  rejoiced  at  the  fact  that  "the  most 
human  prince  of  the  age  "  had  learned  to  appreciate 
its  greatest  poet.  When  the  young  Heine  became 
Rahel's  friend,  she  enquired  how  it  was  with  his 
Goethe-religion;  and  he  was  soon  able  to  assure 
her  that  he  was  "no  longer  a  blind  heathen,  but 
had  received  his  sight." 

Rahel  indefatigably  recommends  Goethe  to 
every  young  person  susceptible  of  culture  as  the 


Goethe  257 

great  educator  of  the  century  in  genuine  culture. 
She  never  neglects  an  opportunity  of  crying: 
"May  Goethe  live  for  ever  and  under  all  circum- 
stances!" When  her  friend,  the  Frenchman 
Custine,  asserted  that  she  went  so  far  in  her 
admiration  of  Goethe  that  she  lost  what  was 
otherwise  her  most  distinguishing  trait,  her 
independence,  she  replied  that  he  was  mistaken, 
for  with  regard  to  genius  she  was  never  independ- 
ent, it  possessed  absolute  power  over  her.  Nay, 
she  regards  it  as  her  special  spiritual  good  fortune 
and  beauty  to  be  able  to  love  what  is  good  and 
great  with  this  deep,  passionate  "worship,  with 
clear  consciousness." 

She  suffers  from  every  word  against  Goethe, 
and  when  Custine,  for  instance,  had  expressed 
some  unfavourable  opinions  in  a  letter,  Rahel 
returned  the  letter  to  him  with  the  explanation 
that  she  could  not  keep  any  censure  of  Goethe 
by  her! 

Rahel  could  say  of  herself  with  truth  that  she 
was  the  person  "who  would  always  have  "wor- 
shipped and  idolised"  Goethe,  even  if  no  one 
else  had  been  found  to  extol,  understand,  and 
admire  him.  She  lived  in  Goethe  so  completely 

that  other  German  poets  seemed   to  her  more 
17 


258  Rahel  Varnhagen 

or  less  unnecessary  beside  him.     Like  Nietzsche 
she  found  that  Schiller,  for  instance,  paled  by  the 
side  of  Goethe. 

After  speaking  with  admiration  of  Schiller,  she  con- 
tinues: "  But  then  Goethe  comes  with  his  power,  his 
purpose,  his  perfection,  and  delineation,  thought, 
maturity,  perfection,  and  power  of  expression,  his 
hard-won  wisdom,  his  contemplative  and  surveying 
melancholy,  his  wise,  distilled  cheerfulness,  with  his  vue 
d'oiseau,  with  his  starry  gaze,  with  his  godlike  breast, 
where  one  not  only  rests  but  finds  peace,  then  in 
all  other  poets  there  is  lacking  something— great." 

At  an  advanced  age  Rahel  writes  of  a  festival 
performance  of  Tasso:  "What  a  joy  to  me!  Eight 
hundred  people  had  to  hear  Goethe's  godlike  words 
and  take  them  into  their  souls ....  Heaven,  how 
I  worship  him  ever  anew;  how  I  weep  at  Tasso,  like 
the  prompter  in  Meister,  at  every  beautiful  passage!" 

To  quote  Rahel's  many  cardinal  opinions  on 
Goethe's  works  would  carry  me  too  far.  I  con- 
tent myself  with  recalling  the  fundamental  truth 
she  expresses  hi  the  words,  that  the  old  poets 
only  knew  woman,  the  wife,  mother,  sister,  whereas 
what  made  Goethe  the  new,  the  modern  poet 
was  that  he  knew  women,  that  he  had  seen 
into  the  hearts  of  individuals  and  there  dis- 
covered every  nook  and  corner.  How  deep  is 
Rahel's  saying  that,  whether  Goethe  had  done 


Goethe  259 

it  intentionally  or  not,  it  shows  the  intuition  of 
a  great  poet  that  in  Wilhelm  Meister  he  makes 
the  three  women  die,  who  could  love — Marianne, 
Aurelie,  and  Mignon — since  "as  yet  there  is  no 
place  prepared  for  such!"  And  referring  to 
Goethe's  knowledge  of  human  nature  in  general 
she  exclaims:  "How  often  he  must  have  listened 
and  known  how  to  get  all  kinds  of  confidences 
from  people,  besides  his  own  vision!" 

Again,  in  1827,  Rahel  writes  to  Varnhagen  of 
Goethe:  "Great  the  god!"  and  declares  that, 
when  others  dare  to  touch  him  and  disparage 
him,  she  sees  all  the  more  "that  he  is  a  god:  in 
gifts,  greatness,  domination,  harmony,  abundance, 
wisdom,  and  eternal  growth." 

Rahel's  feeling  for  Goethe  was  a  deep  intellect- 
ual love  without  the  slightest  trace  of  amorousness, 
without  a  glimpse  of  the  ordinary  woman's 
interest  in  a  great  man,  the  interest  which  aims 
at  making  him  interested  in  herself!  The  first 
time  Rahel  met  Goethe  was  at  Carlsbad  in  1795. 
Rahel  said  it  was  no  doubt  "a  marvel  and  a  stroke 
of  fortune"  that  chance  threw  her  and  Goethe  to- 
gether, but  she  felt  that  there  was  also  a  neces- 
sity in  it;  that  certain  people  must  come  together. 


260  Rahel  Varnhagen 

Her  dignity  had  withheld  her  from  directly  seeking 
a  meeting,  or  even  an  exchange  of  correspondence, 
and  also,  no  doubt,  her  dislike  of  being  in  any  way 
confused  with  the  kind  of  women  who  played  at 
the  worship  which  to  Rahel  herself  was  the  deepest 
earnest.  Of  this  meeting  she  wrote  in  words  as 
moving  as  they  are  profound: 

"I  always  imagine  that  good  wishes,  truly  heart-felt 
wishes,  which  one  thinks  ought  to  draw  down  the 
stars,  must  be  able  to  accomplish  something.  Had 
I  not  really  the  fullest  right  to  see  Goethe  ?"  .  .  . 

"  The  satisfaction  of  seeing  him  and  enjoying  his 
society  made  me  less  happy  than  the  thought:  now 
you,  too,  are  lucky  for  once;  you,  too,  have  fortune  with 
you,  so  after  all  life  is  on  your  side  in  one  thing.  For 
it  is  terrible  to  have  to  look  upon  one's  self  as  the 
one  creature  unfortunate  in  everything;  and  this  I 
have  done,  for,  except  this,  so  far  as  I  know,  no- 
thing has  ever  chanced  aright  with  me."  .  .  . 

Goethe  gave  some  friends  of  Rahel's  an  ap- 
preciation of  her  which  shows  how,  in  spite  of  her 
inability  to  appear  to  advantage  when  she  was 
deeply  moved,  he  had  penetrated  her  whole 
nature. 

"She  is  a  girl  of  extraordinary  intellect,  who  is  con- 
stantly thinking,  and  full  of  feeling — where  can  one 
find  the  like?  It  is  a  rare  thing.  Oh,  we  were  con- 


Goethe  261 

stantly  together,  we  associated  in  a  very  friendly  and 
confidential  way ....  She  is  an  affectionate  girl ; 
she  is  strong  in  all  her  feelings,  and  yet  easy  in  all  her 
utterances;  the  former  quality  gives  her  a  high  signi- 
ficance, the  latter  makes  her  agreeable;  the  former 
causes  us  to  admire  her  great  originality,  and  the  latter 
makes  this  originality  amiable,  pleasing  to  us.  It 
cannot  be  denied  that  there  are  many  people  in  the 
world  who  at  least  appear  original ;  but  what  security 
have  we  that  it  is  not  merely  appearance?  That  what 
we  are  inclined  to  take  for  the  inspiration  of  a  lofty 
mind  is  not  merely  the  effect  of  a  passing  mood? — It 
is  not  so  with  her ;  she  is,  so  far  as  I  know  her,  her- 
self at  every  instant,  always  stirred  in  a  way  peculiar 
to  her,  and  yet  calm — in  short,  she  is  what  I  might  call 
a  beautiful  soul ;  the  more  intimately  one  gets  to  know 
her,  the  more  one  feels  attracted  and  agreeably  held 
by  her." 

At  a  later  date  Goethe  calls  Rahel  "  a  remarkable, 
perceptive,  combining,  helping  nature.  .  .  .  She 
does  not  give  an  opinion,  she  has  the  subject  itself,  and 
in  so  far  as  she  does  not  possess  it,  it  does  not  concern 
her." 

This  pronouncement  was  occasioned  by  Varn- 
hagen's  sending  Goethe  (anonymously)  his  own  and 
Rahel's  references  to  Goethe  himself  in  their  letters  to 
one  another.  When  she  heard  of  this,  she  wrote  that, 
little  as  she  sought  in  general  to  assert  herself  or  win 
approval,  that  had  given  her  real  pleasure. 

"  To  be  able  once  to  lay  my  really  unspeakable  love 
and  admiring  reverence  at  the  feet  of  the  grandest 
man  and  human  being,  has  been,  in  respect  of  its 


262  Rahel  Varnhagen 

duration  and  intensity,  the  secret,  quiet  wish  of  my 
whole  life.  In  one  thing  I  have  followed  my  inmost 
heart,  in  keeping  discreetly  away  from  Goethe. 
Heaven,  how  right  I  was!  How  chaste,  how  unpro- 
faned,  how  well  preserved  through  a  whole  unhappy 
life  was  the  adoration  of  my  heart,  which  I  could  now 
show  him."  And,  after  saying  that  this  "  adoration  " 
pervades  all  her  existence,  that  almost  every  "word  she 
has  written  contains  it,  she  hopes  that  Goethe  himself 
will  now  be  able  to  put  this  reserve  to  her  credit, 
since  he  must  see  how  difficult  it  is  to  conceal  within 
one's  self  in  silence  through  a  whole  lifetime  so 
loving  an  admiration. 

It  is  of  great  interest  that  Goethe's  opinion  on 
the  two  correspondents  is  to  the  effect  that  one 
of  them  (Varnhagen)  has  the  receptive,  the  other 
(Rahel)  the  productive  disposition.  They  per- 
ceived this  themselves  and  it  was  on  this  account 
that  Varnhagen,  whose  strength  and  whose 
weaknesses  were  of  a  feminine  kind,  felt  himself 
completed  by  Rahel,  whose  character  showed 
that  union  of  masculine  and  feminine  nature 
which  constitutes  genius.  Both  felt  Goethe's 
sympathy  for  their  alliance  to  be  a  consecration 
of  it.  Indeed,  Rahel  wrote  that  nothing  gave 
better  proof  of  Varnhagen's  love  for  her  than  the 
fact  that  he  also  loved  Goethe.  For,  she  con- 
tinues, "one  cannot  love  without  loving  Goethe; 


Goethe  263 

.he  is  the  ideal,  expressed  in  terms  of  reality: 
life  itself."  And  Varnhagen  on  his  side  writes 
that  he  meets  with  Rahel  in  Goethe's  writings 
as  much  as  in  her  own  letters.  For  in  the  former 
he  finds  "the  same  purity  of  vision,  the  same 
strong,  truthful  nature,  on  the  whole  more  prac- 
tical than  anything  else,  but  at  the  same  time 
lovable  and  exceedingly  idealistic."  He  lays 
his  finger  on  the  very  centre  of  Rahel's  mental 
kinship  with  Goethe  in  saying  that  he  has  learned 
of  her  "to  put  all  time  into  the  power  of  the 
present  moment"  and  to  perceive  that  the  present 
is  "so  mighty,  so  fascinating,  just  because  it  is." 
Twenty  years  passed  before  Rahel  saw  Goethe 
again,  during  her  stay  at  Frankfort  in  1815. 
Brandes  has  pointed  out  with  much  subtlety 
how  Rahel  gave  an  unconscious  illustration  of 
her  great,  pure,  and  humble  feeling  for  Goethe 
when,  knowing  Goethe  was  at  Gerbermuhle,  she 
did  not  visit  him,  not  wishing  to  force  herself 
upon  him:  "I  have  received  an  infinity  from 
him,  and  he  nothing  from  me."  But  chance 
helped  her  in  such  a  way  that  the  meeting  came 
about  naturally,  as  she  desired  it.  One  day, 
when  Goethe  was  making  a  pilgrimage  to  one  of 
the  beloved  spots  of  his  youth,  Rahel  saw  him 


264  Rahel  Varnhagen 

driving  by  and  cried  out:  "There's  Goethe!" 
She  describes  how  she  first  turned  crimson,  then 
pale,  how  all  her  limbs  trembled  for  half  an  hour 
afterwards,  how  she  loved  her  eyes  for  having 
seen  him!  Thus  Goethe  found  out  that  she  was 
in  the  neighbourhood,  and  three  days  later  he 
paid  her  a  visit.  She  was  in  the  act  of  dressing. 
"Sacrificing  myself  so  as  not  to  keep  him  waiting 
a  moment,"  she  hurried  down  in  her  dressing- 
gown.  Afterwards  she  bitterly  regretted  having 
followed  this  impulse,  for  the  consciousness  of 
her  "want  of  charm"  made  her  more  embarrassed 
than  usual,  so  that,  as  at  their  former  meeting, 
she  was  quite  unable  to  show  him  the  joy  she 
felt.  So  it  is,  she  continues,  when  after  "so  many 
years  of  love  and  life  and  prayer"  one  at  last  has 
a  moment.  But  she  felt  that  the  mere  presence  of 
Goethe  had  given  her  the  accolade,  and  that  indeed 
no  Olympian  god  could  have  made  her  prouder 
by  his  visit.  And,  when  he  had  gone,  she  put  on 
her  best  dress  to  show  her  enhanced  self-con- 
sciousness. For,  she  says,  "like  Prince  Louis  I 
now  feel,  among  brothers,  worth  ten  thousand 
thalers  more:  Goethe  has  been  to  see  me!" 

Any  one  who,  after  this  description,  can  compare 
Rahel's  feeling  for  Goethe  with  that  of  any  other 


Goethe  265 

of  his  contemporaries,  knows  nothing  either  of 
feeling,  or  Rahel,  or  Goethe! 

Ten  years  later  Rahel  saw  Goethe  for  the  last 
time,  when,  in  1825,  she  and  Varnhagen  visited 
him  at  Weimar  in  the  course  of  a  journey  and 
spent  a  whole  rich  evening  at  his  home.  In 
describing  the  visit,  after  relating  some  girlish 
expressions  of  her  admiration,  Rahel  concludes 
with  the  words:  "When  all  is  said  and  done, 
he  truly  flows  in  my  blood."  None  of  Rahel's 
contemporaries  and  no  Goethe-worshipper  that 
has  succeeded  her  could  have  used  these  strong 
words  with  more  truth,  and  yet  they  were  no 
stronger  than  the  reality  of  lifelong  faith  and  love 
that  they  expressed. 

What  Gentz  said  of  Rahel  and  romanticism — 
"You  are  romanticism  itself,  you  were  this  before 
the  word  was  invented" — may  with  equal  truth 
be  said  of  Rahel's  cult  of  Goethe.  It  was  Rahel's 
own  inmost  nature  that  determined  her  affinity 
to  Goethe  and  .to  the  Romantic  School,  so  far  as 
the  latter  coincided  with  the  renaissance  Goethe 
accomplished.  Individualism,  in  art,  in  religion, 
in  life,  that  was  the  import  of  this  renaissance. 
Nay,  this  feature  is  so  decisive  that  Lamprecht 
chose  for  the  new  mental  attitude  the  word 


266  Rahel  Varnhagen 

subjectivism  to  designate  it  more  completely.  In 
Werther,  Gotz,  Stella,  Goethe  opens  the  battle  of 
the  individual  against  ethical  and  aesthetic  con- 
ventions, which  the  romanticists,  Young  Germany, 
and  all  so-called  "spirits  of  revolt"  in  every  land 
have  carried  on  up  to  the  present  day.  And 
even  to-day  it  is  above  all  through  her  sub- 
jectivism that  Rahel  is  our  contemporary. 

To  confute  those  who  are  now  attempting  to 
make  Goethe  into  a  Christian  moralist  we  have 
not  only  an  endless  mass  of  direct  evidence  from 
his  life  and  writings,  we  have  also  quantities  of 
indirect  evidence,  among  which  that  of  Rahel, 
who  never  found  any  contradiction  between  his 
ethics  and  her  own,  is  as  strong  as  any.  The 
watchword  for  his  moral  actions  which  Goethe 
announced  when  young  in  a  letter  to  Lavater: 
"All  your  ideals  will  not  lead  me  astray  from 
being  true  and  good  and  evil  like  Nature" — this 
watchword  Goethe  never  abandoned,  he  only 
extended  its  import.  And  as  after  a  thousand 
years  a  forest  arises  from  the  little  winged  seed, 
so  has  all  the  individualism  of  the  new  age,  even 
Nietzsche's  revaluation  of  ethical  values,  grown 
up  from  the  fundamental  view  that  lies  in  Goethe's 
youthful  words  just  quoted.  Above  all  in  this 


Goethe  267 

respect  Rahel  is  of  all  Goethe's  contemporaries 
the  one  who  understood  him  most  profoundly. 

Rahel  expresses  the  liveliest  satisfaction  when 
Goethe's  works  justify  her  in  her  conflict  with 
the  world,  in  her  striving  to  attain  essentiality, 
in  her  passion  for  the  values  that  others  called 
chimeras.  In  him  she  strengthens  her  own  • 
conviction  that  the  all-important  thing  is  "to  be 
something,"  and  that  this  takes  a  long  time, 
that  "we  must  not  be  in  a  hurry  to  be  something. " 
Of  Goethe  she  learned  the  wisdom  she  imparted 
to  a  friend:  that,  when  one  has  discovered  one's 
real  self,  one  ought  first  to  plough  up  the  field  of 
one's  soul,  then  let  it  become  firm  again  slowly 
and  of  itself,  and  finally  fertile,  alike  in  "bad 
weather  and  fine  weather."  And  that  book  of 
Goethe's  which  Rahel  read  most  often,  Wilhelm 
Meister,  is  the  only  great  handbook  for  this  kind 
of  husbandry. 

Rahel  undoubtedly  had  to  thank  Goethe  that 
she  did  not  remain  at  variance  with  existence, 
but  reached  that  purified  love  of  life  which  is  the 
noblest  essence  of  sorrow.  She,  who  in  her  youth 
thought  it  her  fate  to  bleed  to  death  owing  to  her 
Jewish  nationality;  she,  who  then  possessed,  in 
Goethe's  judgment,  stronger  feelings  than  he  had 


268  Rahel  Varnhagen 

observed  in  any  one  else,  together  with  "the 
power  of  suppressing  them  at  every  instant" — 
how  mournful,  how  deeply  sunk  in  the  darkness 
of  her  destiny  Rahel  might  have  become,  if  she 
had  not  breathed  the  liberating  air  of  Goethe's 
world ! 

"What  I  have  not  received  I  can  forget;  but  what 
has  happened  to  me  I  cannot  forget.  God  protect 
everyone  from  understanding  this!" 

Thus  Rahel  wrote  in  1799,  and  in  a  certain  sense  it 
always  remained  true.  But  by  degrees  she  learned  in 
Goethe's  school  to  submit  to  the  law  of  life  that  he 
has  expressed  in  the  words:  "Not  only  so  much  that 
is  impossible,  but  also  so  much  that  is  possible  is 
withheld  from  us  human  beings." 

Gradually  Rahel  learns  to  resign  herself  when 
faced  by  what  is  painfullest  in  her  life  and  in  that 
of  humanity :  she  learns  that  we  "fall  like  blossoms 
before  the  great,  unknown  wind, "  we,  who  might 
nevertheless  have  become  fruits.  ' '  Calm  thoughts 
and  a  great  feeling  for  nature"  help  her  to  attain 
this  resignation  in  face  of  the  hardest  of  all :  that 
"careless  fate  does  not  demand  of  us  all  that  we 
might  have  accomplished." 

In  this  resignation  she  received  the  greatest 
help  from  Goethe. 


Goethe  269 

Through  him  she  was  born  again,  born  to  that 
kingdom  where  there  is  no  question  of  Jew  or 
Christian,  woman  or  man,  bond  or  free:  the 
kingdom  of  the  holy  spirit. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

SENSE  OF  BEAUTY 

RAHEL'S  aesthetic  judgments  are  excellent  ex- 
amples of  "thinking  one's  self  into  things,"  which 
Weininger  appears  to  have  called  attention  to  as 
woman's  weakness,  while  a  young  Swedish  phi- 
losopher has  endeavoured  to  prove  that  man  also 
thinks  with  his  feelings. z 

Rahel's  judgments  are  replete  with  mental 
pictures  and  complicated;  a  long  development 
lies  behind  the  few  brief  words  in  which  she 
expresses  her  disapproval  or  her  delight. 

She  rarely  mentions  the  arts  of  painting  and 
sculpture.  In  Paris,  Amsterdam,  Antwerp,  and 
Dresden,  Rahel  had  seen  great  art,  and  she  has, 
in  fact,  expressed  her  admiration  of  Rembrandt 
and  Durer,  amongst  others.  But  the  imitative 
arts  had  not  nearly  the  same  importance  to  her 
as  the  theatre,  dancing,  and  music.  Especially 

1  John  Landquist,  Filosofiska  Essayer,  1906. 
270 


Sense  of  Beauty  271 

as  regards  the  theatre  Rahel  exercised  in  her  time 
an  influence  both  direct  and  indirect.  What  she 
says  about  authors  coming  to  see  her,  although 
she  herself  is  no  author,  is  also  true  of  actors. 

"As  a  rule  people  call  upon  authors;  I  am  only  a 
wretched  reader,  and  the  writers  run  after  me." 

Rahel  probably  no  more  tried  her  hand  at  the 
fashionable  amusement  of  amateur-acting  than  she 
did  at  authorship.  But  her  criticism  was  valued  so 
highly  that  not  only  her  friends  among  the  actresses, 
but  other  theatrical  artists  asked  her  advice  in  diffi- 
cult problems. 

Above  all  Rahel,  like  the  romanticists,  tried  to 
break  down  the  Kotzebue-Iffland  vogue,  both  di- 
rectly by  her  criticism,  and  indirectly  by  demand- 
ing of  authors  and  actors  truth  to  nature,  real 
passion,  and  psychological  individualisation.  An 
actor  convinced  her  of  the  genuineness  of  his  vo- 
cation if  he  "always  and  instantly  found  the  na- 
ture of  the  thing,"  that  is,  of  the  character  and 
state  of  mind  of  the  personality  he  was  to  pre- 
sent, and  in  addition  to  this  the  correct  means  of 
expressing  it.  At  this  time  it  is,  of  course,  impos- 
sible to  verify  the  correctness  of  Rahel's  judgment 
in  questions  of  actors  or  musical  performers;  we 
can  only  enjoy  the  genuineness  of  her  own  indigna- 
tion or  enthusiasm. 


272  Rahel  Varnhagen 

She  writes,  for  example,  in  1793  of  the  singer 
Marchetti:  "  She  has  sung  to  me;  she  is  the  unique, 
amiable  woman.  I  am  beside  myself.  I  too  have 
paid  my  court  to  her.  Her  every  movement  is  a 
charm,  a  magic,  a  madness  of  laughter  or  tears.  Such 
singing,  such  cooing,  such  expression — there  is  only 
one  expression.  .  .  .  This  is  passion,  this  is  a 
gift  of  the  gods,  this  is  music,  this  is  beauty." 

And  whatever  art  it  may  be  that  Rahel  is 
enjoying  at  the  moment,  she  always  feels,  when 
the  artist  is  a  genuine  one,  that  he  is  "one  of  the 
elect  of  mankind,"  to  whom  she  tenders  all  her 
warmest  gratitude. 

It  was  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  circum- 
stances of  the  time  that  Rahel,  like  all  those  who 
longed  for  greatness  and  truth  on  the  stage, 
should  be  induced  to  overrate  the  dramatic 
element  in  Goethe's  plays.  With  Schiller,  on 
the  other  hand,  she  is  clear-sighted,  almost  cool; 
she  points  out  with  justice  that  in  certain  of  his 
dramas  the  orator  speaks  rather  than  the  poet, 
and  Schiller's  imitators  are  her  horror.  Her 
knowledge  of  Shakespeare  was  profound,  and  in 
his  humoristic-tragic  representation  of  humanity 
she  found  a  revelation  of  the  very  nature  of  art, 
of  being  "life  in  life,"  as  well  as  "the  deep-rooted 
Germanic  tendency  to  introspection. "  Wherever 


Sense  of  Beauty  273 

Rahel  found  a  didactic  one-sidedness,  there  she 
also  found  inadequate  art.  A  drama,  a  novel, 
she  says,  must  be  a  complete  expression  of  the 
world;  everything  that  appears  there  will  be 
beautiful.  But  every  genius  sees  there  something 
different  and  represents  it  according  to  his  tem- 
perament, gives  it  his  colour,  just  as  the  old  earth 
looks  new  in  the  light  of  every  new  day.  Such 
are  the  works  of  great  masters;  everything  that 
we  can  find  in  the  world,  we  find  in  them;  all 
great  thoughts,  but  no  dressed-up  dummies  of 
thought. 

"  A  work  of  art  must  not  always  tell  me  what  it 
means,  but  must  show  it  at  once." 

"As  the  Greeks  speak  of  men,  as  they  always  sum  up 
everything  to  the  uttermost  limit  and  say  it  quite 
simply,  so  that  it  is  perfectly  great  and  sounds  noble ; 
they  always  leave  everything  as  it  is  and  merely  view 
it  and  relate  it." 

Rahel  never  felt  the  need  of  the  romantic 
school's  alteration  of  aesthetic  values;  whatever 
was  legitimate  in  this  was  already  realised  by 
Goethe,  whose  born  ally  Rahel  was,  while  the 
one-sided  dogmas  of  the  romanticists  inspired 
in  her  an  indignation  that  was  often  "deep- 
cutting"  in  its  expressions.  All  kinds  of  personal 

18 


274  Rahel  Varnhagen 

satires,  parodies,  and  travesties  were  intolerable 
to  her,  and  it  has  already  been  pointed  out  that 
she  abjured  early  in  life  the  kind  of  wit  that  is 
indifferent  how  it  may  wound  or  where  it  may 
strike.  Rahel's  wit  in  daily  life  was  the  humorous 
play  of  colours  made  up  of  tears  and  sunshine. 
At  times  it  was  a  cultural  force,  a  searchlight 
that  illuminated  vanity  or  lying,  stupidity  or 
coarseness.  But  there  is  not  one  of  Rahel's 
sallies  that  has  the  sheen  of  cold  steel. 

One  thing  that  excites  Rahel  against  the 
romantic  school  is  its  unjust  criticism.  When, 
for  example,  the  romantic  current  of  fashion  leads 
A.  W.  Schlegel  to  disparage  Racine,  Rahel  calls 
him  "a  dull,  sick  critic,  who  knows  nothing  of 
love."  Again,  in  opposition  to  this  dogmatic 
blindness,  she  instances  how  hard  a  Lessing,  for 
instance,  has  had  to  fight  for  what  "now  may  be 
put  in  plain  words  in  any  newspaper" ;  how  unjust 
it  is  to  detract  from  the  importance  of  a  champion 
of  truth  because  the  truth  he  strove  for  has  now 
become  "a  commonplace";  how  short-sighted 
it  is  to  imagine  that  one  is  at  liberty  to  despise 
Racine  and  Voltaire,  because  one  has  forgotten 
what  the  age  they  were  compelled  to  live  in  was 
like. 


Sense  of  Beauty  275 

Rahel  insists  strongly  that  mere  bookmen,  who 
have  never  taken  part  in  life,  are  incapable  of 
putting  great  vital  force  into  their  books,  and 
that  no  one  can  understand  the  life  of  bygone 
times  who  does  not  transfer  it  to  our  own 
conditions  —  a  thought  as  true  as  it  is  anti- 
romantic. 

Rahel  happily  lacked  what  is  called  "a  uniform 
view  of  art" — the  kind  of  view  that  has  never 
accomplished  anything  but  a  restriction  of  love 
and  comprehension  of  art.  In  this  respect  a 
uniform  aesthetic  system  operates  like  all  other 
dogmatic  theories,  of  which  Rahel  rightly  says 
that  they  "dry  and  burn  up  the  brain  and 
annihilate  the  rest  of  the  mental  functions." 

While  thus  the  romantic  theory  first  extolled 
and  then  depreciated  Goethe,  Rahel,  both  before 
and  after  the  romantic  school's  cult  of  Goethe, 
approached  his  works  with  a  reverence  free  from 
preconception:  she  did  not  wish,  like  the  romantic 
school,  to  see  in  them  a  confirmation  of  her  own 
theories,  she  only  wanted  a  confirmation  of  Goethe. 
When  the  romanticists  began  to  turn  away  from 
Goethe,  she  had  done  with  them,  and  their  ever- 
increasing  tendency  to  Catholicism  only  inspired 
her  with  disgust. 


276  Rahel  Varnhagen 

Thus  she  wrote :  ' '  Friedrich  Schlegel  abuses  Goethe ; 
therefore  he  stays  where  he  is  and  grows  stupid." 
And  to  Varnhagen,  who  had  quarrelled  with  A.  W. 
Schlegel  about  Goethe,  she  wrote  that  he  ought  to 
have  despatched  Schlegel  thus:  "You  are  not  the 
intelligent  man  I  thought,  in  any  respect,  and  you 
show  only  too  plainly  that  you  neither  know  nor 
see  anything  at  all  of  Nature :  and  for  that  very  reason 
you  see  nothing  at  all  of  Goethe.  Good-bye." 

' '  They  first  work  themselves  into  a  regular  catholic, 
catalogic,  chronological,  post-mediaeval,  and  histori- 
cal mood,  and  then  they  set  about  assigning  our 
eyes,  and  the  Greeks,  to  their  right  place;  and  they 
try  to  put  right  those  who  have  the  senses  they  them- 
selves lack.  Senses,  senses,  our  five  senses ! 

The  words  last  quoted  were  written  by  Rahel 
in  connection  with  her  admiration  for  Heinse, 
which  was  due  to  the  very  fact  that  he  used  his 
"right  five  senses"  and  possessed  them  to  such  a 
degree  that  he  "inhaled  and  smelt"  the  picture 
he  described.  She  admired,  and  recommended 
Varnhagen  to  study,  Heinse's  style,  in  which 
the  words  came  "gushing  forth  in  such  pearl-like 
finish,  with  so  little  premeditation." 

She  admired  in  Heinse  the  complete  indepen- 
dence with  which  he  "had  gathered  everything 
into  himself,"  from  the  slightest  sensation  to  the 
most  serious  thoughts;  whereby  he  did  not  adopt 


Sense  of  Beauty  277 

anything  even  from  the  greatest  masters  "without 
transforming  it  into  his  own  blood  by  some  new 
insect-  or  lion-process." 

Rahel's  own  assimilation  was  of  this  kind. 
This  was  the  kind  of  originality  she  looked  for, 
and  loved  when  she  found  it. 

Among  the  romanticists  she  respected  and 
loved  "unspeakably"  Novalis,  just  on  account 
of  the  depth  of  his  individuality,  the  genuineness 
of  his  feeling.  But  when,  impelled  by  the  theories 
of  romanticism,  not  by  his  own  inmost  soul,  he 
wrote  his  Heinrich  von  Ofterdingen  in  opposi- 
tion to  Goethe,  she  condemned  it  absolutely  as 
an  expression  of  the  profoundest  error  of  the 
romantic  school,  the  doctrine  of  "the  poetry 
of  poetry." 

1  In  this  connection  Rahel  maintained  that  the 
productions  of  the  romanticists  were  unpoetical 
precisely  on  account  of  their  erroneous  idea  that 
poetry  was  not  to  be  found  in  real  life,  where 
Goethe  looked  for  it,  but  that  it  was  necessary 
to  invent  "new  subjects  for  poetry,"  subjects 
which  produce  nothing  but  emptiness  and  tedi- 
ousness  owing  to  their  fantastical  premeditation. 
To  be  a  poet,  says  Rahel,  is  "to  enclose  a  piece  of 
life  in  a  book, "  like  Goethe. 


278  Rahel  Varnhagen 

"Poetry,"  says  Rahel,  "exists  in  Nature;  that  is, 
wherever  our  mind  is  able  to  become  aware  of  any- 
thing free  and  significant ;  therefore  also  in  the  nature 
of  the  events  of  human  life  and  consequently  also  in 
descriptions  of  the  same." 

Rahel  values  Kleist  above  all  because  he  "is 
true  and  sees  truly, "  and  because  she  finds  human 
nature,  and  its  conflicts  with  real  life,  in  his  works, 
while  romantic  fantasies  like  those  of  Tieck  were 
in  a  high  degree  unsympathetic  to  her. 

But  above  all  these  words  of  Rahel's  hit  off  a 
fundamental  weakness  of  the  romanticists:  "To 
have  talent  one  must  have  character;  abilities 
and  natural  disposition  by  themselves  make  no 
talent."  No  doubt  she  had  many  friends  among 
the  pioneers  of  romanticism,  but  she  never 
marched  as  a  soldier  in  its  ranks;  she  admired 
what  was  genuine  in  the  movement,  as  in  every- 
thing else,  but  her  heart  was  not  at  home  in  that 
mediaeval  world:  it  belonged  to  great,  sunny, 
productive  Nature,  to  all  the  manifestations  of 
life;  she  had  the  same  love  of  health  as  her  beloved 
Goethe.  Art  was  to  her  a  religious  and  sacred 
matter;  but  the  simple  relations  of  life,  order 
and  loyalty  in  performing  them,  cheerfulness  in 
work  and  perseverance — all  these  qualities  de- 


Sense  of  Beauty  279 

spised  by  the  romanticists,  possessed  in  her  eyes  a 
religious  consecration  in  the  same,  or  perhaps  a 
higher  degree.  That  is  to  say,  when  they  were 
the  result  of  love  for  these  life-values,  and  not  of 
philistine  mediocrity.  She  granted  the  right  to 
set  aside  current  morality,  but  only  when  this 
was  brought  about  not  by  want  of  character, 
but  by  character.  And  by  character  Rahel  means, 
in  the  creative  artist,  a  pronounced  intellectual 
individuality  combined  with  a  broad  and  well- 
thought-out  view  of  the  world  and  a  conduct  of 
life  in  agreement  therewith.  "One  cannot  become 
an  artist  at  six  o'clock  in  the  evening,"  she  says  of 
actors;  "one  has  to  be  one  all  day  long."  And  for 
her  the  same  held  good  of  all  artists. 

It  is  one  of  Rahel's  maxims  that  there  is  much 
more  talent  in  the  world  than  people  think,  but 
that  it  is  hidden  through  want  of  courage  to  be 
one's  self;  this  courage  is  the  strength  of  all  the 
great  men,  while  their  weak  imitators  forget 
themselves  and  .try  to  present  a  world  without 
themselves  being  in  it! 

"Courage  .  .  .  is  everything,  that  is,  moral  courage! 
External  heroic  courage  is  a  trifle,  often  petty.  But 
inner  courage  and  self-reliance  before  a  world  of  pre- 
judices, one's  own  and  other  people's — if  you  had  that, 


28o  Rahel  Varnhagen 

you  would  be  just  as  cheerful  in  yourself,  just  as  firm 
and  just  as  sensible  as  I  am.  .  .  .  The  much- 
praised  modesty  of  spirit  is  so  seldom  anything  but 
a  glorified  moral  cowardice."  [In  a  letter  to  G.  von 
Brinckmann.J 

She  writes  golden  words  on  the  same  subject  to 
Varnhagen :  "I  should  only  wish  to  advise  you  to  be 
altogether  yourself;  to  work  in  a  regular  orgy  of 
exuberance,  to  have  full  consideration  for  yourself, 
and  to  act  as  though  you  were  alone  in  the  world,  or 
at  least  as  though  you  spoke  a  language  of  your  own 
and  had  first  to  wait  and  see  whether  any  others 
might  come  and  speak  the  same." 

Rahel  could  never  gather  anything  from  the 
accounts  of  others,  but  only  from  the  thing  itself; 
she  was  unable  "to  learn  anything  from  answers, 
to  which  she  had  not  put  the  questions  herself." 
She  says  too:  "One  notices  at  once  whether 
people  get  their  ideas  from  books  or  directly  from 
the  world,  from  Nature's  own  colours  and  forms. " 
Rahel's  "ignorance"  causes  her  to  employ  no 
terminology,  but  spontaneous,  self-made  ex- 
pressions; her  inability  to  accept  ready-made 
results  makes  her  never  use  a  set  phrase  but 
always  give  a  point  of  view  of  her  own.  She 
lived  in  her  favourite  authors  as  she  did  in  her 
most  personal  experiences;  and  all  this  made  her 
judgments  so  essential,  so  quickening,  that  by 


Sense  of  Beauty  281 

degrees  they  were  spread  among  the  whole  of 
literary  Germany.  Her  verbal  and  written  utter- 
ances were  quoted  everywhere,  and  thus  in  many 
respects  she  had  an  important  influence  on  the 
formation  or  transformation  of  the  spirit  of  the 
age.  Indeed,  people  were  so  intent  upon  getting 
her  opinion  that  she  often  withheld  it,  since  she 
was  unwilling  to  increase  the  mass  of  unoriginal 
repetition  or  add  stones  to  the  burden  which 
incompetence  always  has  to  bear.  Moreover, 
Rahel's  keen  eye  could  even  then  see  that  critic- 
ism threatened  a  danger  to  production.  "Berlin," 
she  says,  "is  far  too  fond  of  polishing  up  its 
artistic  feeling  and  lighting  up  its  consciousness 
thereof  with  candles  from  every  factory."  She 
is  afraid  that  intellectual  weakness  may  be  the 
result  of  thus  forcing  a  way  into  "the  most  uncon- 
strained depths  of  humanity."  What  indeed 
would  she  have  said  of  the  interviews  and 
criticisms  of  our  time? 

She  regarded  herself  as  the  most  eminent  of 
her  contemporaries  regarded  her,  as  "one  of  the 
foremost  critics  of  Germany."  But  her  criticism 
was  confined  to  a  highly  cultivated  circle,  the 
members  of  which  she  doubtless  influenced  in- 
dividually, but  only  through  the  force  of  her 


282  Rahel  Varnhagen 

arguments.  Public  criticism,  on  the  other  hand, 
fixes  the  value  or  worthlessness  of  a  production 
for  a  newspaper-reading  public  which  is  itself 
uncritical,  and  does  this,  not  through  the  force 
of  its  arguments,  but  through  the  strength  of  its 
position!  And  this  makes  the  greater  part  of 
modern  public  criticism  a  hindrance  to  culture, 
if  personal  faculty  of  judgment  and  intensified 
emotional  life  are  to  count  as  culture! 

Rahel,  like  all  whose  relation  to  art  is  one  of 
personal  love,  became  more  exacting  with  in- 
creasing years,  while  at  the  same  time  she  re- 
tained her  receptivity  for  everything  new  that 
was  good. 

In  a  letter,  in  which  she  describes  Prince  Puckler- 
Muskau's  "true  child's  nature  "  in  noticing  and  picking 
up  everything  new,  she  says:  "  It  is  corruption  and  not 
lack  of  understanding  when  a  person  is  unwilling  to 
absorb  any  new  idea,  inconvenient  to  himself;  it  is 
stupidity  when  such  ideas  present  themselves  to  him 
and  he  does  not  notice  that  they  are  new;  it  is  the 
greatest  infamy  when  he  recognises  them  and  yet 
denies  them." 

Among  other  proofs  of  Rahel's  unaltered  recep- 
tivity is  her  great  admiration  for  Victor  Hugo  and 
his  "sentiment  du  vrai";  she  calls  his  Notre-Dame  a 
great  masterpiece  of  Gothic  architecture. 


Sense  of  Beauty  283 

And  after  the  age  of  sixty  she  still  declares  that 
she  loves  what  she  has  always  loved:  air,  flowers, 
fields,  music,  the  theatre,  discussion,  that  is, 
sociality,  order,  cleanliness,  elegance,  wit,  con- 
sistency of  thought,  although  it  was  no  longer 
so  easy  for  her  to  find  all  these  things  as  it  had 
been  formerly. 

And  is  it  so,  with  us  all?  Yes,  we  may  say  that 
in  youth  most  people's  love  of  art  is  as  wide  and  as 
shallow  as  a  flooded  meadow,  but  gradually  alters 
its  extent  till  it  becomes  as  narrow  and  as  deep  as 
the  well  of  an  old  castle. 

Rahel  perceived,  with  Schiller,  that  play  is  the 
child's  demonstration  of  art  and  a  thing  as  pro- 
foundly serious  as  the  play  of  grown-up  people — 
art.  The  play  of  the  child  and  that  of  the  artist, 
says  Rahel,  both  have  for  their  end  the  creation  of 
a  new  existence,  which  cannot  as  yet  be  attained 
by  any  other  means.  But,  in  opposition  to  the 
romantic  school,. Rahel  is  not  content  with  trans- 
forming existence  in  art,  she  wishes  to  transform 
existence  itself  to  the  beauty  and  harmony  of 
which  art  gives  the  type.  To  a  scheme  of 
national  art  she  wisely  objects  that  all  the  artistic 
creations  of  a  nation  must  be  national;  nay,  they 


284  Rahel  Varnhagen 

cannot  avoid  being  so;  but  that  no  talking  about 
"a  national  art"  can  call  such  an  art  into  being. 
For  it  is  not  created  from  a  programme,  but  from 
"the  healthiest,  fullest  feeling  for  nature,  from 
innocent  senses,  that  is,  senses  that  have  not  been 
weakened  through  their  education,  and  from  an 
impressionable  disposition,"  Even  in  its  para- 
phrase, in  Fouqu6's  Sigurd,  the  Nibelungen  myth 
grips  Rahel  with  such  force  that  she  has  to  put 
down  the  book  and  "talk  aloud  and  moan  ...  as 
if  I  had  only  seen  Lady  Macbeth  or  a  set  of  Jews 
weeping  the  whole  night  long. "  But  the  power- 
ful impression  of  this  tragically  human  story  did 
not  make  her  abjure  her  hatred  of  "any  other 
than  the  Olympian  mythology,  of  Northern  sagas, 
runes,  and  the  like,  and  the  new  hope  in  the  old 
gods  of  mist. "  As  soon  as  this  element  becomes 
dominant  and  thrusts  the  human  aside,  her  admi- 
ration is  ended.  And  has  not  every  experiment, 
the  Nibelungen  Ring  included,  confirmed  the 
correctness  of  Rahel's  instinct  as  regards  the 
unserviceableness  of  these  gods  of  mist?  For 
in  the  "Ring"  it  is  only  the  human  beings  who 
are  gods! 

Rahel  insists  that  a  nation's  only  task  with  re- 
gard to  all  kinds  of  creative  activity  is  to  give  them 


Sense  of  Beauty  285 

a  free  course,  to  see  that  they  enjoy  favourable 
conditions,  and  to  protect  them  from  over-zealous 
national  vanity. 

How  completely  Rahel  inwardly  dissociated 
herself  from  the  romantic  school  is  best  seen  in 
her  most  immediate  manifestations  of  life,  above 
all  in  her  feeling  for  nature,  which  is  surprisingly 
modern.  For  example,  when  Rahel  wonders 
whether  the  earth  itself  is  not  perhaps  a  sentient 
being,  which  suffers  from  all  the  misery  it  is  com- 
pelled to  support  and  perhaps  finds  its  consola- 
tion in  a  feeling  of  fellowship  with  all  the  other 
beings  in  space.  Or  when,  after  a  ride  on  a  donkey 
through  a  mountainous  tract,  she  tries  to  explain 
the  indescribable  delight  this  ride  has  given  her  by 
the  thought  that  in  some  earlier  existence  in  Spain 
she  may  have  taken  just  such  a  ride  in  pleasant 
company,  an  idea  that  in  our  time  has  found  such 
profound  expression  in  Lafcadio  Hearn.  Rahel 
had  all  her  life,  even  in  her  youth,  that  feeling  for 
nature  to  which  the  landscape  becomes  a  state  of 
the  soul  (AmieT).  But  she  never  weaves  human 
situations  or  feelings  into  the  landscape  or  into 
particular  natural  objects  in  the  romantic  way. 
As  a  rule  the  feeling  for  nature  in  the  young  is 


286  Rahel  Varnhagen 

always  romantic  in  the  sense  that  the  young  see 
themselves  mirrored  in  nature,  and  indeed  in  life 
as  a  whole,  and  the  mirror  reflects  the  uneasiness, 
the  longing,  the  happiness,  or  the  revolt  that  fills 
their  own  souls.  The  more  our  innermost  ego 
frees  itself  from  our  own  destiny,  the  calmer  we 
thus  become;  we  are  then  ourselves  a  mirror  to 
nature,  and  our  relation  to  nature  becomes  at  the 
same  time  a  more  impersonal  and  a  more  intimate 
one. 

That  Rahel  passed  through  this  development 
at  an  early  age  is  perhaps  one  reason  why  her  feel- 
ing for  nature  remained  from  early  life  even  to  the 
last  the  wholly  direct  one,  which  absorbs  nature 
completely  with  all  the  senses  and  all  the  soul, 
without  allowing  a  reflection,  a  feeling  belonging 
to  human  life  to  interpose  between  itself  and  this 
immediate — one  might  almost  say  vegetative — sen- 
sation. Varnhagen  tells  us  that  during  a  journey 
through  the  Black  Forest  he  had  an  opportunity 
of  observing  Rahel's  "capacity  for  the  highest  en- 
joyment of  nature."  The  strength  and  fulness 
with  which  she  directly  enjoyed  mountains  and 
waterfalls,  meadows  and  trees,  sunrises  and  stars, 
delighted  Varnhagen  as  much  as  did  nature  itself. 

I  have  referred  in  another  connection  to  Rahel's 


Sense  of  Beauty  287 

plant-like  sensitiveness  to  atmospheric  influences. 
She  felt  mild  air  literally  as  rebirth.  The  first 
of  May  she  calls  the  most  important  day  of  the 
year,  its  birthday,  and  she  cannot  conceive  why  it 
was  not  made  New  Year's  Day.  She  wonders 
whether  her  predilection  for  May  is  due  to  her 
having  breathed  its  air  when  newly  born,  to  the 
impressions  of  May  having  been  the  first  to  meet 
her  eye  on  earth. 

Rahel's  short  pictures  of  landscape  are  impres- 
sionist, purely  impressions  of  the  senses,  but  the 
essential  ones,  just  those  the  picture  leaves  in  the 
memory. 

Thus,  for  instance,  she  describes  how  she  showed 
the  Prague  Valley  to  Varnhagen  and  some  friends  in 
these  words:  "...  I  am  as  proud,  when  you  delight 
in  the  view,  as  if  I  had  made  it  myself,  or  discovered  it 
and  kept  it  for  the  enjoyment  of  my  friends  in  light 
and  shade,  in  scent,  verdure,  and  vegetation .... 
The  valley  is  more  beautiful  than  ever.  .  .  .  Hazels, 
wild  briars,  cornflowers,  oaks,  beeches,  and  thousands 
of  herbs  press  forward  in  their  growth,  more  beauti- 
ful, richer,  more  luxuriant,  calmer  than  ever,  in  the 
most  golden  sunshine,  which  floods  this  valley  of  the 
gods."  .  .  . 

"Round  about,  to  an  immeasurable  distance,  hori- 
zon beyond  horizon ;  the  most  incredible  play  of  light 
and  shade  over  the  cornfields."  She  describes  how  the 


288  Rahel  Varnhagen 

light  plays  upon  the  river  that  creeps  like  a  beast 
through  the  valley;  upon  villages  and  farms,  upon 
"dark,  obstinate  mountains.  Sheep  were  feeding, 
timber  was  felled  in  the  mountain  woods  and  lay 
there,  clean,  dead  and  scented.  .  .  .  Bells,  peace, 
everything." 

At  another  time  she  rejoices  in  the  thousand  scents 
of  the  fields,  the  hemp,  the  hazels,  the  growing  corn, 
and  a  sunshine  "  which  regularly  raged  over  the 
country  with  light  and  shade." 

Or  again,  she  delights  in  a  garden,  "where  there 
was  such  a  mad  riot  of  flowers"  that  she  had 
never  seen  the  like.  She  enumerates  fifteen  ar- 
bours, among  them  a  great  bower  of  limes,  flower- 
ing within  and  without,  and  all  around  a  symphony 
of  bees ;  millions  of  stocks,  a  little  avenue  of  stand- 
ard roses,  and  outside  the  garden  broad  fields  with 
waving  corn  lit  by  the  evening  sun. 

Prince  Puckler- Muskau,  famous  for  his  original 
and  knightly  personality,  his  travels,  his  fine 
writings,  his  knowledge  of  the  world  and  his 
gardens,  belonged  to  Rahel's  circle  of  friends 
during  her  later  years.  And  on  her  visits  to 
Muskau,  where  the  prince  had  displayed  all  his 
genius  in  the  art  of  horticulture,  Rahel  found  an 
ideal  existence:  "Nothing  is  so  good  as  Muskau," 
she  says.  She  came  straight  out  into  what  was  to 


Sense  of  Beauty  289 

her  the  "brewed,  refreshing  air";  she  there  found 
good  friends,  full  freedom,  enough  solitude,  enough 
amusement;  she  had  her  little  Elise  with  her  and 
finally  there  was  "much  for  the  eye  and,  since 
everything  proceeds  from  diligence  and  thought, 
food  for  them  too. "  These  last  words  remind  one 
of  the  garden  conversations  in  Elective  Affinities, 
and  the  whole  reminds  one  of  the  time  when'  a 
garden  was  what  it  is  beginning  to  be  again, 
material  for  artistic  creation. 

During  her  whole  life,  and  especially  as  she 
grows  older,  Rahel  feels  that  she  gets  more  out 
of  "children,  verdure,  fine  eyes,  the  living  word" 
than  out  of  books.  Flowers  become  her  medicine. 
Thus  her  convalescence  after  a  severe  illness  began 
with  a  basket  of  roses,  sent  her  by  Heine,  and 
when  she  was  given  on  her  deathbed  a  branch  of 
lilac  with  young  leaves  on  it,  she  inhaled  the  fra- 
grance of  spring  again  and  again,  the  last  thing  she 
enjoyed  in  life,  "with  deep  breaths  and  in  ecstasy. " 

These  words  written  at  random  show  Rahel's 
feelings  at  the  death  of  Goethe:  "Gentler  than 
showers  in  May  are  children's  kisses,  the  scent  of 
roses,  the  notes  of  the  nightingale  and  the  trills  of 
the  lark.  Goethe  hears  them  no  more.  A  great 
witness  is  gone. " 
19 


290  Rahel  Varnhagen 

These  words  of  Rahel's  harmonise  closely  with 
some  of  Goethe's  own,  which  Rahel  did  not  know, 
as  they  were  written  in  his  young  days  to  Frau 
von  Stein,  melancholy  words  about  the  time  when 
he  would  no  more  be  able  to  enjoy  the  glory  of  the 
sun,  the  sky,  and  green  things,  while  all  these 
would  shine  over  his  grave.  And  how  deeply 
would  such  an  agreement  as  this  have  stirred 
Rahel,  who  felt  "mad  with  joy"  when  she  found 
in  Goethe's  autobiography  that  he  and  she  had 
had  similar  feelings  as  children,  their  love  of 
lightning,  for  instance,  which  in  Rahel  was  so 
strong  that  she  declared  she  hated  people  who 
were  afraid  of  it.  For  just  this  agreement  more 
than  anything  else  proceeded  from  the  inmost 
necessity  of  each.  The  most  violent  outburst  of 
grief  would  have  been  a  feeble  expression  of 
Rahel's  feelings  at  Goethe's  death  in  comparison 
with  these  quiet  words.  Nothing  illustrates  more 
clearly  the  depth  both  of  Rahel's  understanding 
of  Goethe  and  of  her  own  feeling  for  nature  than 
the  fact  that,  at  the  thought  of  his  death,  she 
suffers  above  all  from  his  no  longer  being  able  to 
witness  the  reawakening  of  nature  in  spring. 


CHAPTER  IX 

LETTERS 

RAHEL  wrote  a  fine  and  legible  hand,  just  as  she 
spoke  in  a  clear  and  distinct  voice.  But  it  is 
certain  that  her  written  language  is  far  inferior  to 
her  language  of  conversation,  although  one  can 
see  that  the  former  has  retained  a  good  deal  of  the 
life  of  the  spoken  word,  and  this  is  shown  perhaps 
by  the  very  things  that  make  her  difficult  to  read, 
the  irregularities  of  construction  and  punctuation, 
the  interjections  and  exclamations.  But  she  has 
succeeded  in  what  she  aimed  at:  in  writing  "con- 
versations as  they  take  living  shape  within  one" 
— conversations  which,  as  every  one  knows,  do 
not  shape  themselves  according  to  any  laws  of 
composition. 

But  Rahel  might  equally  well  have  written 
letters,  in  which,  as  she  says,  "the  soul  wanders  at 
will, "  and  at  the  same  time  have  made  them  easier 

of  understanding.     That  her  German  was  defi- 

291 


292  Rahel  Varnhagen 

cient,  that,  as  she  complains,  "anybody  can  write 
and  talk  better  with  much  more  stupid  ideas, "  is 
no  doubt  one  reason  for  the  heaviness  of  her  style. 
But  the  chief  cause  is  to  be  found  in  her  lack  of  the 
gift  of  form,  a  gift  which  might  have  impressed  the 
artistic  stamp  even  on  such  products  of  the  mood 
of  the  moment  as  her  letters.  This  deficiency  is 
perhaps  connected  with  the  obstinate  peculiarity 
which  prevented  Rahel,  in  her  own  words,  from 
ever  being  able  to  learn  anything  from  another. 
When  Rahel  speaks  of  her  "gross  ignorance"  and 
says  "nothing  was  taught  me,"  this  must  not  be 
taken  to  mean  that  she  had  had  no  opportunity  of 
learning.  On  this  point  she  has  told  us  unam- 
biguously that  the  cause  lay  within  herself. 

Thus.she  adduces  the  following:  "It  is  true  that  I 
always  think  of  what  is  essential  in  what  I  read,  and 
that  to  this  end  I  only  make  the  most  rapid  use  possi- 
ble of  all  means  at  my  command,  and  then  forget 
these  means  completely.  ...  I  arrange  every- 
thing I  hear  or  read  into  a  whole.  .  .  .  All  those 
who  give  me  instruction  begin  by  preaching  some- 
thing, which  is  always  taken  from  a  point  of  view 
from  which  I  do  not  see  this  thing,  and  so  they  talk 
for  hours  without  any  connection  so  far  as  I  am  con- 
cerned. .  .  .  Thus  it  has  been  with  me  with  all  my 
masters.  . .-..  . 

"Our  speech  is  our  lived  life;  I  have  invented  my 


Letters  293 

own,  so  that  I  have  been  able  to  make  less  use  than 
many  others  of  ready-made  phrases;  therefore  mine 
are  often  rugged  and  faulty  in  all  kinds  of  ways,  but 
always  genuine." 

Rahel  probably  did  not  know  a  single  date  in  the 
history  of  Greece,  but  she  read  Homer  in  Voss's 
translation;  it  made  her  declare  that  "the  Odyssey 
seems  to  me  so  beautiful  that  it  is  positively  pain- 
ful,"  and  she  discovered  that  Homer  is  always 
great  when  he  speaks  of  water,  as  Goethe  is  when 
he  speaks  of  the  stars.  Probably  she  could  not 
enumerate  the  rivers  of  Spain,  but  she  knew  Don 
Quixote.  In  a  word,  she  was  the  very  opposite  of 
the  kind  of  talent  that  passes  brilliant  examina- 
tions and  is  capable  of  carrying  "completely  un- 
digested sentences  in  its  head."  What  Rahel 
could  not  transform  into  blood  of  her  blood  did  not 
concern  her  at  all.  There  was  such  an  indestruct- 
ible "connection  between  her  abilities,'1  such  an 
intimate  "co-operation  between  her  temperament 
and  her  intelligence, "  that  there  was  no  room  in  her 
for  all  the  unoriginal  ballast  of  which  the  views 
and  opinions  of  most  other  people  are  made  up: 
she  could  only  keep  and  only  give  what  was  her 
own. 

This   is   the   incomparable   charm   of  Rahel's 


294  Rahel  Varnhagen 

letters  and  their  unique  strength,  in  the  face  of 
which  all  weaknesses  vanish. 

It  is  natural  that  a  Rahel  should  wonder  whether 
we  do  not  talk  so  much  because  we  cannot  express 
our  inmost  meaning ;  that  she  should  hope  that  we 
may  end  by  finding  "the  Word"  that  will  include 
in  itself  all  that  is  now  unspeakable;  that  she 
should  especially  love  those  words  which  she  found 
to  contain  "whole  families  of  ideas. " 

For  Rahel's  own  most  felicitous  words  are  just 
those  that  in  some  respect  give  expression  to  some- 
thing hitherto  unuttered;  those  of  which  one  may 
say  that  they  not  only  include  a  "family"  but  a 
whole  nation  of  ideas. 

Some  one  asked  Rahel  to  give  her  opinion 
"quite  naively."  She  answered  that  she  could 
promise  that  and  the  opinion  would  still  be  naive. 
For  she  knew  that  her  originality  was  so  rooted  in 
her  nature  that  nothing  could  damage  it.  And 
she  says  with  reference  to  her  letters:  "I  am 
quite  unable  to  fashion  myself  after  anything, 
for  my  raging  heart  fashions  everything  in  and 
about  me. " 

What  is  the  effect  of  her  not  being  able  to  write 
better  German?  Would  she  otherwise  have  really 
given  her  correspondents  more  than  she  did?  Was 


Letters  295 

she  even  one  of  those  who  ought  to  have  learned 
things  as  others  learn  them,  whether  she  knew 
them  or  not?  Surely  not. 

Rahel  was  one  of  those  prophetic  natures  which 
always  reach  their  knowledge  by  mysterious  ways, 
as  is  related  of  Cassandra,  who  heard,  saw,  and 
understood  everything  from  the  moment  she  was 
found  as  a  child  on  the  floor  of  the  temple,  in  the 
coils  of  a  serpent  that  licked  her  ears. 

In  Rahel's  time  letter-writing  was  a  social  duty 
and  a  social  art.  Letters  were,  so  to  speak,  the 
supplements  of  the  newspaper  press,  for  they  circu- 
lated widely  and  fulfilled,  in  a  refined  and  discreet 
way,  functions  which  the  press  now  performs  in  a 
very  different  manner.  In  those  days  people  had 
leisure  to  take  pains  with  their  letters,  since  the 
thousand  trivialities  that  now  demand  a  dozen 
post  cards  and  two  dozen  telephone  calls  a  day  did 
not  consume  the  time  and  destroy  the  peace  with- 
out which  letter-writing  cannot  be  developed  into 
an  art. 

Rahel  was  a  thorough  child  of  her  time  in  the 
importance  she  attached  to  letters  and  the  pleasure 
they  gave  her.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  as  a 
correspondent  she  was  far  more  of  an  improviser 


296  Rahel  Varnhagen 

than  most  of  her  contemporaries.  She  is  direct 
to  such  a  degree  that  her  letters  sometimes  resemble 
a  stream  of  fire,  sometimes  a  flood  of  tears,  some- 
times a  play  of  sunlight  flecked  with  shadows. 
In  the  face  of  such  natural  forces  one  forgets 
errors  of  grammar  and  punctuation.  If  one  does 
not,  one  ought  not  to  read  Rahel.  She  is  an  in- 
fallible touchstone  of  human  quality. 

After  receiving  a  letter  of  Rahel's  Gentz  writes: 
11  Do  men  write  thus?  No!  Nor  gods  either!  Beings 
intermediate  between  gods  and  men,  childlike  great 
spirits,  sublime  children,  souls  in  which  the  whole 
world  at  once,  with  its  heights  and  depths,  is  ever 
mirrored,  which  shake  down  the  greatest  thoughts 
and  the  greatest  emotions  like  hazel-nuts  from  their 
ever-teeming  bushes  and  throw  them  into  common 
life.  ...  In  every  word  the  world  blossoms .... 

"They  [the  letters]  are  living  human  beings,  which 
move  along  with  beautiful,  dear,  tender  hands,  little 
feet,  godlike  eyes,  and  especially  godlike  red  lips."  .  .  . 
And  Rahel  herself  quotes  with  approval  another  ex- 
pression of  Gentz's,  that  her  letters  are  like  "  fresh, 
aromatic  strawberries,  to  which,  however,  mould  and 
roots  are  still  hanging,"  since  the  plant  has  just  been 
plucked  out  of  the  ground. 

Her  letters  touch  upon  a  multitude  of  subjects. 
There  is  nothing  methodical  about  them;  great 
and  little  subjects  come  pell-mell,  one  after  an- 


Letters  297 

other;  she  writes  of  what  interests  her  at  the 
moment  and  the  assertion  that  she  "can  talk 
about  Kant  and  new  hats  in  the  same  breath" 
is  almost  literally  true.  A  French  critic  who  has 
called  her  "at  the  same  time  simple  and  compli- 
cated, universal  and  original,  as  open  as  Nature 
and  like  her  a  mystery"  sums  up  herein  the  im- 
pressions he  has  received  from  her  letters.  It  is 
always  nature  that  she  recalls,  by  the  incalcula- 
bility,  the  inexhaustibility,  the  originality,  and  the 
vital  force  of  her  utterances.  And  nature  forms 
the  background  of  them  all.  She  often  begins  her 
letters  with  a  description  of  the  weather  in  two  or 
three  lines,  a  description  so  full  of  essentiality  that 
it  throws  one  at  once  into  just  that  frame  of  mind 
which  such  weather  produces.  "Father  Ether" 
is  to  her,  as  to  Holderlin,  the  most  important  of  the 
gods:  "Fine  weather  and  climate  is  the  most 
beautiful  thing  on  earth.  It  is  a  real  god.  One 
can  and  ought  only  to  enjoy  it  and  feel  it, "  she 
writes. 

She  says  with  truth  that  "in  the  history  of  my 
life  the  weather  and  my  health  must  have  their 
place."  Her  physical  susceptibility  and  sensi- 
tiveness are  so  strong  that  "too  thick,  too  thin, 
too  warm,  or  too  cold  air"  makes  her  ill,  while  a 


298  Rahel  Varnhagen 

due  agreement  between  herself  and  the  air  is  a 
conscious  delight.  We  can  see  how  Rahel  finally 
reached  a  point  where  she  "asked  nothing  of  life 
but  some  sort  of  a  correspondence  with  the 
atmosphere."  And  we  can  only  understand  Ra- 
hel's  letters  by  allowing  for  the  strength  of  the 
atmospheric  influence  which  affected  her  mood 
at  the  time  of  writing. 

The  weather  conditions  that  are  describ^-d  at 
the  beginning  of  the  letters1  are  not  the  only 
conditions  that  determine  them.  Rahel  can  only 
write,  she  says,  when  "a  certain  kindling  takes 
place  within  her."  But  the  slightest  thing  may 
check  the  flow  of  this  humour,  a  bad  pen,  for 
instance,  or  a  trembling  of  the  hand.  Words,  ex- 
pressions, form,  train  of  thought,  construction,  all 
are  affected  by  it,  and  her  style  is,  according  to 
circumstances,  rugged,  flowing,  playful,  or  calm. 

But  above  all  we  must  remember  that  all  per- 
sons sensitive  to  this  extent  are  also  creatures  of 
instinct;  that  their  sympathy  or  antipathy  is  de- 
cided with  the  rapidity  of  lightning ;  that  their  eye 

1  Here  are  some  examples,  in  March:  "  Snow  on'the  roofs  and 
in  the  streets.  But  it  is  already  disappearing;  the  thick  clouds 
are  parting;  brightness,  if  not  sunshine,  pierces  through."  Or 
in  December:  "Gloomy,  grey,  damp  autumn  weather;  warmish, 
undecided  temperature.  Very  black  streets." 


Letters  299 

speaks  before  their  thoughts;  that  their  feelings  are 
so  strong  that  he  who  regards  the  expression  of 
these  feelings  as  adequate  to  the  facts,  whereas  it 
is  only  adequate  to  such  person's  impression  of 
the  facts,  will  be  misled  with  regard  to  the 
facts. 

Depth  of  sensibility,  susceptibility  of  the  senses, 
delicacy  of  instinct,  penetration  of  thought  are  all 
combined  in  that  prophetic  state  of  mind,  that 
lion's  spring,  with  which  Rahel's  feeling  seizes  its 
object. 

"Feeling  is  much  more  delicate  than  thought," 
she  says,  and  she  relies  blindly  upon  feeling,  even 
when  she  allows  thought  to  collect  arguments  in 
support  of  it. 

These  arguments  may  be  more  or  less  good: 
feeling  itself  is  always  the  valuable  element,  often 
the  infallible  guide,  in  Rahel's  subjective  judg- 
ment. The  objective  value  others  assign  to  it 
depends,  of  course,  upon  the  reliance  each  one  has 
in  Rahel's  instinct  for  value  or  non-value.  I  for 
my  part  doubt  the  judgment  of  those  who  do  not 
perceive  the  divinatory  certainty  in  Rahel's. 

And  even  if  Rahel's  opinions  may  be  contra- 
dicted, of  what  importance  is  that  compared  with 
the  radiant  honesty  and  genuineness  with  which 


300  Rahel  Varnhagen 

in  these  wonderful  letters  she  sends  her  whole  soul 
"for  the  enjoyment  and  use"  of  her  friends? 

Rahel's  letters  and  a  number  of  aphorisms,  of 
which  some  were  published  in  reviews  during 
her  lifetime,  are  her  only  contributions  to  litera- 
ture. The  fact  that  she  once  calls  these  aphorisms 
Results  &  la  Chamfort  is  no  evidence  at  all  of  her 
having  taken  Chamfort,  as  some  have  assumed,  as 
her  special  model.  French  literature  can  show 
earlier  and  greater  authors  in  this  department, 
authors  whom  Rahel  knew  well,  and  she  always 
admired  French  elegance  and  lucidity  of  expres- 
sion, qualities  which  she  did  not  herself  possess. 

But  even  if  no  one  before  Rahel  had  written 
in  aphoristic  form,  she  would  have  been  led  to  do 
so.  For  this  form  was  her  natural  and  necessary 
mode  of  expression,  as  it  is  that  of  all  poets  with- 
out the  gift  of  poetry  and  of  all  thinkers  without 
the  inclination  to  systematising.  She  herself 
best  characterised  her  literary  productions  in  the 
words:  "They  were  shot  out  by  explosions,  there 
are  jewels  among  them. " 

Varnhagen  published  after  Rahel's  death  a  selection 
of  her  letters  with  the  title:  Rahel,  a  Memorial  for  her 


Letters  301 

Friends,  and  with  the  motto  from  Holderlin's  Hyperion: 
Still  und  bewegt  (calm  and  emotional).  Afterwards 
his  niece,  Ludmilla  Assing,  published  the  pamphlet, 
Aus  Rahels  Hersensleben.  Besides  these  there  are 
Rahel's  complete  correspondence  with  David  Veit 
and  her  correspondence  with  Varnhagen.  For  those 
who  cannot  spare  the  time  to  read  through  all  this, 
I  recommend  as  a  companion  and  complement  to  my 
delineation  the  condensation  of  Varnhagen's  book, 
edited  by  Dr.  Hans  Landsberg  (in  the  Renaissance- 
Bibliothek,  published  by  L.  Simion,  Berlin,  1904). 

Varnhagen  published  Rahel's  letters  as  "a 
memorial  for  her  friends. "  But  he  felt  that  the 
book  would  have  a  wider  circle  of  readers  and  a 
more  enduring  influence.  He  expresses  the  hope 
that  when  the  German  nation  returns  to  "the 
beautiful  origins  of  its  intellectual  culture,"  Rahel 
will  be  rightly  understood ;  it  will  then  be  seen  that 
in  her  everything  is  "significant  and  important," 
since  her  original  and  pure  nature  showed  itself 
in  everything,  from  her  care  and  orderliness  in 
the  smallest  everyday  matters  to  her  thoughts  on 
the  highest  things.  But  Varnhagen  does  not 
regard  this  return  as  the  only  preliminary  condi- 
tion of  a  true  understanding  of  Rahel:  it  is  also 
necessary  that  the  conventional  morality  be  dis- 
carded ;  that  love  and  marriage  be  looked  at  from 


302  Rahel  Varnhagen 

other  points  of  view;  that  honour  give  place  to 
shame  and  shame  to  honour.  Not  till  then,  Varn- 
hagen thinks,  will  the  pages  be  rightly  understood 
in  which  Rahel  reveals  herself,  freely  and  grandly, 
wonderful  in  the  purity  of  her  freedom  from  pre- 
judice, in  her  elevation  above  "all  prudery  and 
hypocrisy,"  true  and  open,  frankly  confessing 
what  others  have  kept  to  themselves. 

Has  this  time  yet  arrived,  or  is  Rahel  still  before 
the  age? 

Rafael's  letters  reveal  herself  from  early  youth. 

"Tears,  splendour,  and  fury"  are  characteristic 
of  her  whole  life,  above  all  the  earlier  part  of  it. 
She  never  attains  that  harmony  which  can  only  be 
given  by  a  perfect  happiness. 

But  she  attains  the  equilibrium  which  results 
when  we  have  succeeded  in  forgiving,  if  not  in 
understanding  existence.  It  is  this  inward  de- 
velopment that  we  witness  in  her  letters.  Varn- 
hagen, who  could  say  with  truth  that  he  knew 
about  Rahel  all  that  one  person  can  know  of 
another,  signalised  her  as  the  most  innocent, 
tender,  pure,  delicate,  upright,  and  pious  person 
he  had  ever  known ;  the  most  chaste  in  the  highest 
sense  of  the  word ;  he  declared  that  the  genuineness 


Letters  303 

that  underlay  all  Rahel's  life  and  actions  was  so 
great  that  beside  her  all  others  appeared  common- 
place. "Indeed,"  he  wrote  in  this  connection,1 
"all  her  genius  and  talent,  mighty  as  they  are, 
vanish  before  the  gushing  life  in  her  breast." 
It  is  true  that  she  has  "acuteness,  wit,  imagina- 
tion, sense,  a  pure,  enthusiastic  view,  the  noblest 
veracity.  But,"  he  concludes,  "the  innocence 
and  naivete  of  this  truthful  human  heart  are  the 
most  beautiful  things  my  eyes  have  ever  beheld." 

Every  one  who  has  come  to  know  Rahel  closely 
will  agree  with  Varnhagen. 

Rahel's  individuality  has  the  most  rigid  limits 
and  her  sympathy  the  most  delicate  under- 
standing; she  is  sensuous  with  the  most  suscep- 
tible receptivity,  and  every  nerve  in  her  sensitive 
organism  is  in  the  power  of  the  soul;  she  is  a 
sexual  being  in  every  drop  of  her  blood,  and  at 
the  same  time  a  "  Vollmensch, "  in  whom  the 
man's  mental  power,  the  child's  innocence,  and 
the  woman's  depth  of  feeling  are  in  complete 
equilibrium.  Her  inmost  being  is  calm  and  her 
external  existence  is  a  genial  intercourse.  She  is 
rationalist  and  mystic,  individualist  and  altruist. 

1  To  Goethe. 


304  Rahel  Varnhagen 

She  is  an  aristocrat  and  a  democrat.  And  she  is 
none  of  these  temporarily  or  by  turns,  but  all  of 
them  at  the  same  time  and  at  every  period  of  her 
existence.  In  a  word,  she  was  one  of  those  who 
have  already  reached  the  third  kingdom,  where 
sundering  fortuity  has  given  place  to  the  essential, 
and  apparently  irreconcilable  contradictions  have 
merged  in  a  higher  state,  in  which  man  is  individual 
and  externally  active,  splendid  in  himself,  and 
broad-hearted  in  his  sympathies,  heathen  and 
Christian,  genius  and  kindness,  senses  and  soul! 

Already  the  onlooker  is  nearer  to  this  syn- 
thesis than  the  active  and  creative.  Rahel  is  one 
of  the  former.  And  thereby  she  represents  the 
highest  value  women  have  yet  brought  into  cul- 
ture, that  of  being  the  "ancestors"  of  the  holy 
spirit. 

I  have  elsewhere1  maintained  that  the  leading 
characteristic  of  the  soulful  person  is  the  con- 
nection and  co-operation  between  his  different 
qualities.  Even  from  this  point  of  view  Rahel 
is  one  of  the  exceptionally  soulful.  But  she  is  so 
not  only  through  this  connection  and  co-operation 
between  already  existing  spiritual  gifts,  she  also 
foreshadows  a  future  and  more  soulful  mode  of 

1  In  Lifslinjer  II.  (Lebensglaube) :  on  the  Evolution  of  the  Soul. 


Letters  305 

existence.  Her  unique  sensibility,  her  visionary 
gift  of  divination,  her  quick-sightedness,  her  cer- 
tainty of  instinct  are  manifestations  of  a  spiritual 
force  to  which  at  present  only  the  exceptional 
being  has  attained,  but  which  the  race  may  per- 
haps finally  acquire.  Her  soul  has  great,  new 
gestures;  new  and  deeper  tones  of  feeling  vibrate 
in  her  cries  of  joy  and  anguish ;  she  has  found  words 
for  hitherto  unspoken  inner  experiences  and  her 
silence  conceals  secrets  yet  unsuspected,  with  which 
her  lips  already  tremble. 

Nietzsche  describes  the  impression  he  once 
received  when,  without  seeing  the  singer,  he  only 
heard  a  deep,  fine  contralto  voice.  "We  at  once 
imagine,"  he  says,  "that  somewhere  in  the  world 
there  may  be  women  with  lofty,  heroic,  royal 
souls,  able  and  ready  to  make  grandiose  remon- 
strances, resolutions  and  self-sacrifices,  able  and 
ready  for  lordship  over  men,  since  what  is  best 
in  man,  apart  from  sex,  has  become  in  them  an 
incarnate  ideal." 

Rahel's  deep  contralto  voice  is  such  a  pro- 
phecy, and  at  the  same  time  a  confirmation,  of 
this  great  dream  of  the  woman  of  the  future. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

In  Rahel  Varnhagen,  ein  Lebens-  und  Zeitbild,  by 
Otto  Berdrow  (Stuttgart,  Greiner  &  Pfeiffer,  1903), 
the  following  bibliography  is  given: 

Rahel,  ein  Buch  des  Andenkens  fur  ihre  Freunde. 
With  portrait.  3  vols.  (Berlin,  Duncker  & 
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dem  Nachlass  Varnhagens  von  Ense).  2  vols. 
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Brief e  von  Staegemann,  Metternich,  Heine  und  Bettina 
von  Arnim  (nebst  Briefen,  Anmerkungen  und 
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Briefe   von    Chamisso,    Gneisenau,    Haugwitz,    W.    v. 

Humboldt,  Prinz  Louis  Ferdinand,  Rahel,  Ruckert, 

L.  Tieck  u.  a.  (nebst  Briefen,  Anmerkungen  und 

Notizen),   ed.   by  Varnhagen  von  Ense.     (Aus 

307 


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Ense  aus  den  Jahren  1827-58.  Nebst  Auszugen 
aus  Varnhagens  Tagebuchern  und  Briefen  von 
Varnhagen  und  A.  v.  Humboldt.  2nd  edition. 
(Leipzig,  F.  A.  Brockhaus,  1860.) 

Briefwechsel  zwischen  Varnhagen  von  Ense  und  Oelsner, 
nebst  Briefen  von  Rahel.  Edited  by  Ludmilla 
Assing.  3  vols.  (Stuttgart,  A.  Kroner,  1865.) 

Varnhagen  von  Ense,  K.  A.:  Galerie  von  Bildnissen 
aus  Rahels  Umgang  und  Briefwechsel.  2  vols. 
(Leipzig,  Gebruder  Reichenbach,  1836.) 

Varnhagen  von  Ense:  Biographische  Portraits.  Nebst 
Briefen  von  Koreff,  Clemens  Brentano,  Frau  v. 
Fouque",  Henri  Campan,  Scholz.  (Leipzig,  F. 
A.  Brockhaus,  1871.) 

Varnhagen  von  Ense,  K.  A.:  Denkwiirdigkeiten  und 
vermischte  Schriften.  9  vols.  (v.  1-4,  Mannheim, 
Heinrich  Stoff,  1837-8.  v.  5-9,  Leipzig,  Brock- 
haus, 1840-59.) 

Assing,  Ludmilla:  Aus  Rahels  Herzensleben.  (Leip- 
zig, Brockhaus,  1877.) 

Ueber  Rahels  Religiositdt.  Von  einem  ihrer  alteren 
Freunde.  (Leipzig,  Gebruder  Reichenbach, 
1836.) 

Holtei,  Karl  von:  Brief  e  an  Ludwig  Tieck.  4  vols. 
(Breslau,  Eduard  Trewendt,  1864.) 


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Dichtung.     2nd  edition,  edited  by  Eduard  Gotze. 

6  vols.    (Leipzig,  Dresden  &  Berlin,  S.  Ahlermann, 

1898,  vol.  3.) 
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von  Ense.     In:  Allgemeine  deutsche  Biographic, 

vol.  39. 
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Ibid. 
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vols.     (Berlin,  Robert  Oppenheim,  1875.) 
Kuhne,  F.  Gustav:  Rahel.      In:  Weibliche  und  mdnn- 

liche  Charaktere.     ist  part.     (Leipzig,   Wilhelm 

Engelmann,  1838.) 
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Charaktere  und  Situationen.     ist  part.     (Wismar 

&   Leipzig,    H.    Schmidt  &   V.   Cossel's   Reise- 

buchhandlung,  1837.) 
Neumann,  Wilhelm:  Rahel.     In:  Schritfen.     ist  part. 

(Leipzig,  F.  A.  Brockhaus,  1835.) 
Kalischer,  Dr.  Alf.  Chr.:  Beethoven  und  der  Varnhagen- 

Rahelsche  Kreis.     In:  Der  Bar.     1887,  Nos.  1-4. 

(Berlin,  Gebriider  Paetel.) 
Gosche,  Richard:  Moses  Mendelssohn  und  die  ersten 

literarischen    Salons    in    Berlin.     In:     Vossische 

Zeitung,  1886,  Sunday  supplement  to  No.  27. 
Furst,  I. :  Henriette  Herz.     Ihr  Leben  und  ihre  Erin- 

nerungen.     (Berlin,  Wilhelm  Hertz,  1850.) 


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Cans,  Eduard:  Riickblicke  auf  Personen  und  Zustande. 

(Berlin,  Weil  &  Co.,  1836.) 
Ranke,    Leopold    V.:   Zur   eigenen   Lebensgeschichte. 

Ed.  by  Alfred  Dove.    (Leipzig,  Duncker  &  Hum- 

boldt,  1890.) 
Strodtmann,  Adolf:  H.  Heines  Leben  und  Werke.     8 

vols.  3rd  edition.    (Hamburg,  Hoffman  &  Campe, 

1824.) 
Tornow- Walter,   Robert:  Goethe  in  Heines   Werken. 

(Berlin,    Haude    &    Spenersche    Buchhandlung, 

1883.) 
Schmidt-Weissenfels,   Eduard:   Rahel  und  ihre  Zeit. 

(Leipzig,  P.  A.  Brockhaus,  1857.) 
Steig,    Reinhold:    Achim    von   Arnim    und    Clemens 

Brentano.     (Stuttgart,  J.  G.  Cotta,  1894.) 
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geistigen    Lebens   der   preussischen    Haupstadt. 

2  vols.     (Berlin,  Gebruder  Paetel,  1892-5.) 
Geiger,  Ludwig:  Geschichte  der  Juden  in  Berlin.      2 

parts.     (Berlin,  I.  Guttentag,  1871.) 
Treitschke,  Heinr.  von:  Deutsche  Geschichte  im  19.  Jahr- 

hundert.     (Leipzig,  S.  Hirzel.) 
Sybel,   Heinr.   von:  Die  Begriindung  des  Deutschen 

Retches  durch  Wilhelm  I.     Vol.  i.     4th  revised 

edition.     (Munchen  &  Leipzig,   R.  Oldenbourg, 

1892). 
Gottschall,  Rudolf  von:  Die  deutsche  Nationalliteratur 

des  IQ.  Jahrhunderts.       Literarisch  und  kritisch 


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dargestellt.     5th  ed.     Vols.  i.  and  ii.      (Breslau, 
Eduard  Trewendt,  1881.) 

Schmidt,  Julian :  Geschichte  der  deutschen  Literatur  von 
Leibniz  bis  auf  unsere  Zeit.  Vols.  Hi.  and  iv. 
(Berlin,  Wilhelm  Hertz,  1886-90.) 

Stern,  Adolf:  Geschichte  der  neueren  Literatur.  Vol.  v. 
(Leipzig,  Bibliographisches  Institut,  1883.) 

Honegger,  Dr.  I.  I.  :  Literatur  und  Kultur  des  ig. 
Jahrhunderts.  In  ihrer  Entwicklung  dargestellt. 
(Leipzig,  J.  Weber,  1865.) 

Brandes,  Georg:  Das  junge  Deutschland.  (Vol.  vi. 
of  Hauptstromungen  der  Literatur  des  19.  Jahr- 
hunderts.) (Leipzig,  H.  Barsdorf,  1896.) 
English  edition:  Young  Germany.  (Vol.  vi.  of 
Main  Currents  of  Nineteenth  Century  Literature.) 
(London,  William  Heinemann.) 

Prolss,  Johannes :  Das  junge  Deutschland.  Ein  Buch 
deutscher  Geistesgeschichte.  (Stuttgart,  I.  G. 
Cotta  Nachfolger,  1892.) 

Votum  uber  das  "Junge  Deutschland."  (Stuttgart, 
S.  G.  Liesching,  1836.) 


To  the  above  works,  for  the  most  part  known  to  me, 
may  be  added : 
Vaughan  Jennings,  Mrs. :  Rahel,  her  Life  and  Letters. 

(London,  1876.) 
Immermann,  Munchhausen. 


312  Bibliography 

Hebbel:  Kritiken. 

Rahel  et  le  monde  de  Berlin,  by  Blaze  de  Bury  (Revue 
des  Deux  Mondes,  15  Dec.  1858.) 

Rahel  Varnhagen  und  die  Romantik.  Inaugural- 
Dissertation  zur  Erlangung  der  Doktorwurde 
von  Emma  Graf .  (Bonn,  1901.)  Published  com- 
plete as  Heft  28  of  Literarhistorischen  Forschung- 
en  (Berlin,  E.  Felber.) 

Funck:  Rahel.     (Bamberg,  1835.) 

Angelus  Silesius  und  Saint-Martin.  Auszuge  und 
Bemerkungen  von  Rahel  (1834). 

Rahels  Theater-  Urteile.  Mitgeteilt  von  Varnhagen 
von  Ense.  In  Lewalds  Theaterkursen.  (Stutt- 
gart, 1836.) 

Articles  by  Riccarda  Huch  (Die  Zeit,  1902)  and  Jakob 
Wassermann  (Der  Tag,  1904.) 

Rahel,  ein  Buch  des  Andenkens  fur  ihre  Freunde. 
Shorter  edition,  with  introduction,  by  Dr.  Hans 
Landsberg.  (Berlin,  Simion  Nf.,  1904.) 


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revolutionary,  but  in  educational  questions  she 
shows  originality,  and  her  writings  have  a  wide 
appeal  among  progressive  people.  In  the  mat- 
ter of  the  education  of  children  she  is  the  foe  of 
mechanical  methods  and  recommends  a  large 
liberty  in  the  bringing-up  of  young  people. 


G.  F.   Putnam's  Sons 
New  York  London 


By  ELLEN 


Love  and  Marriage 

Cr.  <S°.     Net  $150.     By  mail,  $1.65 

"  One  of  the  prof oundest  and  most  important  pronouncements  of 
the  woman's  movement  that  has  yet  found  expression.  .  .  .  Intensely 
modern  in  her  attitude,  Miss  Key  has  found  a  place  for  all  the 
conflicting  philosophies  of  the  day,  has  taken  what  is  good  from  each, 
has  affected  the  compromise,  which  is  always  the  road  to  advance- 
ment, between  individualism  and  socialism,  realism  and  idealism, 
morality  and  the  new  thought.  She  is  more  than  a  metaphysical 
philosopher.  She  is  a  seer,  a  prophet.  She  brings  to  her  aid 
psychology,  history,  science,  and  then  something  more — inspiration 
and  hope." — Boston  Transcript. 

The  Woman  Movement 

Translated  by  Namah  Bouton  Borthwick,  A.M. 

With  an  Introduction  by  Havelock  Ellis 

72°.     Net  $1.50.     By  mail,  $1.65 

This  is  not  a  history  of  the  woman's  movement,  but  a  statement 
of  what  Ellen  Key  considers  to  be  the  new  phase  it  is  now  entering 
on,  a  phase  in  which  the  claim  to  exert  the  rights  and  functions  of 
men  is  less  important  than  the  claims  of  woman's  rights  as  the 
mother  and  educator  of  the  coming  generation. 

Rahel  Varnhagen 

A  Portrait 

Translated  by  Arthur  E.  Chater 
With  an  Introduction  by  Havelock  Ellis 

72°.    With  Portraits.    Net  $1.50.    By  mail,  $1.65 

A  biography  from  original  sources  of  one  who  has  been  described 
as  among  the  first  and  greatest  of  modern  women.  The  book  is  a 
portrait  sketch  of  Rahel  Varnhagen,  and  her  characteristics,  as  "  a 
prophecy  of  the  woman  of  the  future,"  are  illustrated  by  copious 
extracts  from  her  correspondence. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  London 


"Packed    with    Information    about    actual 
present-day  business  conditions  and  method*." 

— REVIEW  OF  REVIEWS. 


The  American  Business 
Woman 

A  Guide  for  the  Investment,  Preserva- 
tion and  Accumulation  of  Property, 
Containing  Full  Explanations  and  Il- 
lustrations of  all  Necessary  Methods 
of  Business 

By 

John  Howard  Cromwell,  Ph.B.,  LLB. 

Counsellor-at-Law 

Second  Revised  Edition.     Octavo.    392  pages. 
$2.00  net.     By  mail,  $2.20 

"  Mr.  Cromwell's  book  is  without  doubt  one  of  the 
valuable  publications  of  the  year  .  .  .  thoroughly 
well  written  and  carefully  thought  out.  .  .  .  Fasci- 
nating as  is  the  subject  of  mortgages,  it  is  necessarily  but 
one  phase  of  the  book.  .  .  .  The  book,  as  before 
stated,  is  extremely  valuable,  and  will  be  found  a  good 
investment,  not  only  for  women  for  whom  it  was  primarily 
intended,  but  for  many  men." — New  Yoek  Times. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 


New  York 


London 


A     000  034  342     6 


University  of 
Southern  1 
Library  I 


